Memorial day weekend, we parked at the gate off of Hwy 410 to the road that goes up to Coral Pass at about 5500'. We hiked in and ran into hard consolidated snow at 3700' and by 5500' and 6 miles we were at Corral Pass which had about 6' snow.
My friend Dennis was able to spot a small bare spot in the sun about 1.5 miles away. We headed off and landed on the perfect dirt spot. We had a view of Rainier on one side & Mt. Stuart on the other.
On Sunday we woke up & were moving very slowly. Mt. Rainier had about 50 lenticular clouds develop over it and move downwind. I told my friend that we better enjoy today since it will be very wet the next day. So we headed off to Noble Knob. Enjoyed the views and the strong winds.
On our way back I gave my friend some Pringles Chips. We were eating our lunch and a wild coyote came within 3 feet of him. Dennis decided to feed the coyote since he did not know what else to do. Now the coyote was our friend. He followed us back to our camp. We had to shoo him away.
The final day we woke up at 7am and eat breakfast & packed fast and it started to rain about 5 minutes after hitting the trail. Good timing.
I will be surprised if the Coral Pass road opens by August given all the snow.
Photos: Spring hiking at its peak; coyote cub begs for people-food.
Note: This is backcountry wilderness travel. Any trail can become very dangerous in winter conditions. You are responsible for informing yourself of the hazards and taking the necessary precautions. Please read Terms of Use.