Green Mountain via modified Wildcat Trail

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Distance: ~6.5 miles Round Trip

Trailhead : 567 feet (GPS N47 36.018 W122 47.322)

Highpoint: 1572 feet (GPS N47 34.300 W122 47.781)
Elevation Gain: 1005 feet

Hike difficulty calculator score: 13
Trail Notes: Frequently used trail including use by stock and motorcycles. No scrambling (climbing over rocks) Careful when the trail is wet or snow covered. Did not attempt the summit which has an elevation of 1640 feet.
Pass/Permit: None!

Driving directions at bottom of post

As always click on pictures for original size.

Photos of this hike are located here.

No sooner were the clothes cleaned from the Mount Walker hike two days ago, than I put them to good hiking use again. An easy and nearby trail system, Green Mountain, was selected for this hike as it permitted us to ring in the new year, rest, and still finish our hike by 4:00pm. Come to find out, many other people had the same idea.

The benefits of Green Mountain, besides it's nearby location include: easy to hike, several different trails to explore, no permits/passes required, restroom facilities within 2 miles of the trailhead, designated camping locations, pets are permitted, multiple viewpoints, and the almost guaranteed company of other Green Mountain users.

The members in our group for this hike included Cheryl, Mary, Kiwi, and myself. We arranged to meet at the trailhead at 9:00am. All of us were all a bit early and surprised to find the trailhead filled with other vehicles and horse trailers. Conversing with several of the friendly people we learned it was a monthly meeting of a local horse/hiker club that included a pancake feed. We were graciously invited to attend and share in the warm vittles on this cool northwest morning.

With packs packed, gaiters on, and chocolate covered gummi bears accounted for, we put our boots to the trail. The trail begins through a section of forest that was logged several years back. One can see the areas that were clearcut as the first mile or so is hiked. After crossing a couple of logging roads the trail steepens a little. There are some eastern views of the Bremerton shipyard Puget Sound, and Seattle.

Clearcut ....................................Seattle view


After 2 miles another road is crossed. The road can be followed for about 200 yards to the Green Mountain Campground or the hiker can continue on the Wildcat Trail and hike a bypass around the camp. Both the bypass and camp route will keep you on the Wildcat Trail. We encountered many people, plenty of horses, and several cyclists as we walked our way along the trail.

Riders ..........................................For Ron :-)


Beyond the campground the trail climbs upward with more views to the east. With some good binoculars you can see the activity occurring at the Naval shipyard and the Seattle Space Needle. Continuing upward we made a handful of stops to let others by. Cheryl and Mary ran into a few acquaintances throughout the hike. And Kiwi behaved herself as the horses rode past.

We ran into a trail spur that tried to hide itself from us. I remember taking this detour (wrong turn, LOL) on a previous hike. We almost missed it as the snow covered brush obscured the faint trail very well. We took this route as it offers, in my humble opinion, better views than the summit if the Wildcat Trail is followed to its end. Fighting past the initial brush only took a moment or two and then the trail revealed itself better. Ten minutes later we arrived at the eastern viewpoint, a small clearing of about 625 square yards that offers a view from Mount Rainier to Mount Baker.



Another 10 minute walk westward and we arrived at our midway point for lunch. I call this the western viewpoint. I hope someone can tell me the proper names of these two locations. The west viewpoint is about 400 square yards and offers a great 180 degree panoramic view of the Cascade Mountain range behind Seattle, Canada, Puget Sound, and the eastern Olympics over to the Brother's Peaks (2nd pic down in link) . Fantastic view!!

Olympics ..................................Cascades


Stomping down some snow, we made a small spot to lay out the barcalounger. Removing the packs, we rooted around inside them to pull out lots of food stuff. There was fruit, vegetables, energy bars, sandwiches, custom teas, crackers, pretzels, chocolate covered gummi bears and even rainbow colored gummi worms. No telling what else them two women had in those packs. :-).... Wonder what the horsemen would have thought of us if we showed up for the flapjack festival asking for the pancakes to be made with gummi worms? LOL Stripped, branded and drug out by our feet? :-) All in fun folks. But do experiment one day and try gummi bears in your muffins or cupcakes.

While we were on the topic of modified muffins or even enhanced brownies, Mary started relating a tale of a visit to Green Mountain earlier in the year. Her eyes took on a faraway look, her voice became very low in the chilled winter air, and she seemed to withdraw to a distant place. She told the tale of a bright object in the summer sky on her last trip to Green Mountain. Something in the sky. It moved erratically. Could not make out what it was. I asked her if it left footprints like this.

She was not sure as there was no snow to observe tracks during the summer. It gave off an unrecognizable sound she said in a low whisper. Mary mentioned she had some short footage of the object and that it was ok to post in this trip report. Perhaps some of the more knowledgeable hikers from the group might be able to help identify it.





Having finished our stories and the food, we loaded up the packs and set out to return via a different route. Kiwi let Cheryl take the lead with Mary and I trailing after them. We descended a water run-off gully for several minutes that started downward at the western viewpoint. In about 30 minutes we had hiked about 300 feet down, trekked 0.2 miles and regained the original Wildcat Trail. If we had returned the route we came, we would have traveled 0.6 miles. Cheryl's route saved us almost a half mile.

Before long we were reaching the fringes of the campground. We took the road route instead of the trail bypass this time. Plenty of nice people with some beautiful horses. We excused ourselves and our full bellies, continuing back down the trail. We let some cyclists get ahead of us and they took off downhill really fast. Never laid eyes on them again. Descending past the snow level back into the clearcut areas, we passed some late coming hikers and wished them a good new year.



Arriving at the trailhead we saluted ourselves with another hike safely accomplished, put away our gear and headed back to warmth and a bath.....:-)

Battery died coming down :-(


Video:



Directions:
Going north on Hwy 3, past Bremerton and before Silverdale, take the Newberry Hill Road (Silverdale) exit and turn left/west. Follow Newberry Hill road for about 3 miles then turn left onto Seabeck Hwy. Follow Seabeck Hwy for about 2 miles and turn right onto Holly Road. Follow Holly about 2 miles to the Wildcat Lake trailhead. There is a green sign 500 ft from the double entrance.