Well, Everyone made it back from Pinnacle Peak Hike – Dr. Martin Luther King Day

While the folks back on the East Coast are battling snowstorms, we have had sunny, clear weather with temperatures into the high 50s and low 60s. The bad part about all this warm weather?   The freezing level has skyrocketed up to 10,000 feet and that translates into no snowshoeing for us in January! Yikes! Normally we wouldn’t do this lower elevation hike (at this time of year) because I would much rather get out in the snow.  It’s winter, we want to see some snow!

So last week, instead of a snowshoe hike, we hiked up Pinnacle Peak in Enumclaw. My hiking partners this billy goat trip were my 12 year old daughter and two of her friends. All three happen to be part of our Girl Scout troop and I wanted to see if this would be an age appropriate hike and skill level for them. As it turned out, they didn’t have any problems keeping up with me.

Pinnacle Peak is part of the King County Parks system. It is a short hike (2 miles round trip) and starts at 800 feet elevation and ends at 1800 feet elevation. Since the weather has been fairly nice, the trail wasn’t as muddy as it could have been this time of year. I wore my Merrill walking shoes and didn’t get them too muddy. There were a couple of slick spots but nothing that deter us from reaching the top in a timely manner. Here’s the link to the Pinnacle Peak map PDF

One thing I neglected to do on this hike was to track the time we were on the hike. I do know that we left Kent around 2 pm and returned by 5 pm. That includes stops in Enumclaw at a chocolate shop and a stop at Kelly’s Latte Stand.

Do you have any favorite hikes you’d like to recommend?  Leave your tips and advice below!