New trail provides a path to nature's vistas

Spring is the cruelest season for Northwest hikers.

Crystalline days beckon, but the high country is still buried in snow.

Impatient feet now have a new outlet nearby, with the inauguration Saturday of the revamped Rattlesnake Mountain Trail.

Less than 30 miles from Seattle, the 11-mile trail climbs a forested ridge that parallels I-90 and offers views from Mount Baker to Mount Rainier and beyond. With a high point less than 3,500 feet, the trail is usually snow-free early in the year.

Volunteers and trail crews worked 40,000 hours to transform an overgrown scramble into a route capable of handling the heavy foot traffic the proximity to Seattle is bound to attract.

"Fifteen years ago, this looked like a gravel pit," said Bill Chapman, standing at the landscaped trailhead with a restroom and parking for 50 cars. Chapman is president of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, formed in the early 1990s to preserve forest and wildlife habitat along the I-90 corridor.

The group bought much of Rattlesnake Mountain from Weyerhaeuser more than a decade ago but hadn't been able to complete the trail until the Legislature recently kicked in $650,000.

The new trailhead sits at the western end of the ridge. A second trailhead at the eastern end leads to the rocky outcrops called Rattlesnake Ledges. The new trail connects the two and allows for a complete traverse.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday — a green ribbon, of course — Chapman hoisted a day pack and headed up the path along with many others from the crowd of nearly 100.

The area's not wilderness, he pointed out. Most of the ridge has been logged at least three times. Timber cutting continues on some land owned by the State Department of Natural Resources, which was a major participant in the trail upgrade.

"That's OK," said Doug Schindler, the Greenway Trust's field program director. "We'd rather have a working forest than a housing development."

Alders shade the lower stretch of trail, which follows an old road bed.

Buttercups shine in the dappled sunlight as if coated with lacquer. The teardrop florets of bleeding heart nod toward the ground, and steps buttressed by logs march up a steep pitch.

The ridge got its name not from snakes, but from the camas bulbs that used to sprout in a meadow to the east, Chapman explained. When breezes shook the plants, they sounded like angry rattlers.

The new trail was designed to wind under a moss-covered archway of vine maple and skirt the enormous stump of a Douglas fir felled a century ago, Chapman pointed out. "That would have been a 300-year-old tree," he said. "And look: There's another tree growing on it."

After about a mile, the trail breaks into a more recent clear-cut choked with fireweed and salmonberry. A few firs still stand, as dictated by modern logging rules.

"Last September, when I tried to walk here, it was all brush," Chapman said. "You could see your boots, but it made you wish you had long pants on."

After the trail crosses several logging roads and ducks under power lines, a short path leads to an overlook 2.5 miles from the trailhead.

Chapman climbs on a log to get a glimpse of Mailbox Peak to the east, where the Greenway Trust hopes to build its next trail. Mount Si, where the group helped revamp one of the state's most traveled trails, looms across the Snoqualmie Valley. Mount Baker pokes its pointed head over the horizon.

To the west, blocks of houses crowd ridge tops.

"That's what this could have been like," Chapman said.

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com