Mt Teneriffe - 13.25 miles, 3,880' gain
Winter is over and the hardier mountain hoppers are wearing shorts but you don't have to climb too high before you realize those folks are standing on 6+ feet of snow. Last Friday's hike was a trek along a road to trail conversion to reach the Mt Teneriffe summit. I was intrigued by the opportunity to look down on Mt Si (700' below) while letting my heel blisters recover from the Old Si Trail. Turns out old roads are very good collectors and retainers of snow. Even when the surrounding forest might have a patchy foot or two, Oak and I were trekking along an elevated highway that was reasonably solid, although we were walking right over the 2+ miles of consecutive, thigh deep post holes of the poor guy who tried this hike during Seattle's heat wave. If that had happened to me, I would have faked a sprained ankle and called in the helicopter.
The first 1.5 miles is a very tame stroll along a mostly level grade with lots of streams showing off their frigid falls. Then its another 2.5 miles of wondering how somebody driving an old dozer could have managed to maintain such a consistent grade back and forth across mountainous terrain. Lots of time to ponder this as you are hemmed in by trees with only the deep thrum of blue grouse looking for love to intrude on your thoughts.
By the time the road finally ends and there is only 0.75 miles to the summit, I was just about toast. Oak was not impressed, even when I pointed out I was carrying his lunch too. Its been a while since I have felt the altitude sucking the go from my legs before my heart rate was the limiter and I haven't missed that feeling even a little bit.
It was so bad that when I finally popped out of the trees to look out over the Snoqualmie valley and had 100' of elevation left, I was looking up at those rocks and thinking I could probably live with myself if I... but then the view inspired endorphins were kicking in and overriding the legs protest of oxygen deficiency. This was no triumphant skip to the top though, I leashed my 0.1 hp dog to drag me up.
Interestingly (to me at least), my new summit friend was also a first year winter hiker who had come up with a killer covid resolution - to hike to all 299 of the lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It was a pleasant surprise to meet a fellow amateur as I had assumed the few people I passed on these hikes were grizzled Alaska or Colorado expats who had been raised with ice axes as their teethers. If you want to see a better hiking blog, check out the ALW Hiker. The Hike-O-Meter is my favorite part and I'm curious to see how he progresses as he notes that only 156 lakes are accessible by trail. Since I didn't think of this first, I'm going to one-up him by attempting to catch a fish in each of the 299 lakes! 
I wont bore you with anymore epic mountain pictures but this was by far the most interesting 2021 summit both in terms of the views and the interesting features on the mountain itself. Oak and I considered following the tracks of ALW's ascent on the Kamikaze trail (straight down the mountain, 2,300' in a mile) but I didn't trust myself not to pitch face first and set a time record for the descent. We hustled down the mountain the long way and made it home with 5 minutes to spare for the car swap and to grab some pizza on the way to daycare (+2 dad points).
The views from the top are spectacular in all directions and even though Rainier was mostly obscured (as it has been for every 2021 hike...) I could see most of my 2021 summits along with many past hikes. The cornice on top was really cool but also had me a little spooked. The other hiker on the summit captured a couple shots of me sticking to the one visible rock.