Mileage: 8.7
Elevation Gain: 3,579
Distance from Seattle: 1 hour 45 min
The plan for the weekend was to head out for a backpacking trip, but with increasing chances of rain for Sunday, we opted for a day hike instead. Mt. Dickerman has been on my list for awhile, so the 6 of us + pup left Seattle by 6 and arrived just before 8. I felt like I hadn't done a day hike (with no snow) in so long. I've been used to carrying my heavy backpack as well, so my day pack was feeling crazy light. I brought 4 liters of water, which may seem like overkill, but there are no sources of water on this trail. I went through 3 of the 4 as well. My day hiking bag is typically filled with the 10 essentials, rain gear, water, and lots and lots of snacks! It took us 3 hours to get up with stopping pretty minimally. The hike has a good, consistent climb the entire time. Closer to the top there are beautiful meadows filled with all sorts of alpine flowers. The views of the peaks around are stunning, even with the overcast we had. We hung out at the top, ate lunch, soaked in the views, then made our way back down.
I'm an ambassador for Oberto. Thanks for the perfect hiking snacks, Oberto!
Glacier Peak far in the distance
On the way we ran into someone that had said he saw a bear down below, so bears were on the mind now. I had literally said "I would love to see a bear from a distance" and two seconds later we spotted one. This was my first bear sighting from trail! It was chomping away in a meadow not paying any attention to us. We had to get a bit closer to continue down trail and it eventually went on the other side of the hill. Such a cool experience to see a bear in the wild doing it's thing. In my head I've built them up to be these big scary creatures. Seeing it in the wild just being it's majestic self pretty much shattered my preconceived notions of them. With being bear aware and not scaring them, there's really no reason to be scared of them.
Doris's photo of the bear!
It took us 2 hours 15 minutes to get down to the car and we were on our way home. This is a great day hike not too far from home with amazing mountain views at the top. Definitely would do it again!