Mt. Townsend

8 of us decided to ascend Mt. Townsend in the Olympic mountain range over the Fourth of July weekend for a couple nights of camping. Our initial idea was to hike in to Silver Lake, camp, then head up to the ridge and camp another night. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't so great on Saturday so we decided to go all the way up to the ridge after hearing reports of sun up there. The trail itself is of a medium grade, not too steep but not too shallow either, with small patches of snow that we had to pass through around 5500'. After a few hours we made it to the ridge and set up camp, where we had a few snowball fights and did some exploring. At around 8pm the clouds finally sank, revealing a fantastic sunset over the Western Olympics. We woke the next morning to gusting winds and low clouds once again, so we packed up and headed back out to Seattle for the fireworks. Mt. Townsend is always a great hike with some stunning scenery!