Thurston County Highpoint Trip Report
Quiemuth Mountain
Date: April 30, 2006
Author: David Olson
Climbing Quiemuth Mountain, I hadn't had that much work out in a while.
Some notes:
Roads are slow south from Tacoma and Puyallup.
The road net is not as bad as it looks. I took no map with me, just a road
log to Elbe and a hand-made map to the mountain top. The turns are pretty obvious.
There is a Forest Service gate at the end of county maintenance, 4 miles from
WA Highway 7. It says, "Road closed Memorial Day to Labor Day."
There is another gate 4 miles farther, just before the left turn that goes up the gulch
to the saddle east of Quiemuth Mountain. The sign there says the same thing.
To be researched: whether one can get at Quiemuth by a "back" approach during
the summer.
Once at the saddle park at the road fork or park at the first wide spot in the
road going left. Any further on that left road and you will have trouble
getting up to the ridge and trouble finding where to exit the ridge on your descent.
The good part about the bushwhack is that the route is well defined.
The ridge crest projects nicely for most of the trip. The bad part about the
bushwhack is the amount of downed timber you will have to contend with.
The bottom part of the route tends to be broad, which has the trap that you
might go right past the road fork before you realize that you are going up the
other mountain and need to head south-southwest looking for the road.
My method was to take a watch and keep track of ascent time and descent time.
At descent=ascent it was time to start tending south.