Once we exited the forest, we came to a much greener trail where the Old and New Trails met up and eventually made our way to the daunting pile of rocks in the picture below. We played leapfrog with a group of hikers all the way up–in fact, we passed each other so often that we actually learned their names! There were quite a few other people taking Old Trail too, so we tried to keep an eye out for hikers who knew where they were going when possible.
We definitely got lost a couple of times, since the “trail” is pretty unclear at times, but luckily were eventually able to locate the reflective markers every time. The majority of Old Trail takes you through a seemingly never-ending wooded area. It helped that the day started off cool–we walked through a few clouds on the way up–and I can’t imagine doing this particular hike in mid-summer heat. Despite it being the most challenging hike I’ve done to date, I found it to be much more enjoyable than I was anticipating. Old Trail is everything they say about hiking Mailbox–it is a steep, poorly maintained (although there are reflective markers on trees along the way), relentless trail with few switchbacks. We somehow managed to completely misinterpret the map at the bottom and ended up taking Old Trail anyway. We left from Kent at 8am sharp and arrived at the trailhead around 9–this hike requires the Discover Pass at the parking lot–and headed up to the trail.
However, Logan hadn’t been hiking in a while, so we were planning on taking New Trail instead, which is half as steep and twice as long. Mailbox Peak (Old Trail) is one standard by which hikers in the PNW are measured, featuring an almost 4000 foot elevation gain in a short 2.5 miles. Since my old housemate (Logan) is moving this week, I decided to send him off in the best way I know how–with a grueling hike through the woods to a ridiculously gorgeous viewpoint.
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