East Tiger Mountain - 1.8.2012

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rodman's GPS route from December 2006... 10 miles roundtrip, gaining 2777 feet of elevation.
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From Issaquah... drive east on I-90... take Exit #22 for Preston... at the Stop Sign, turn right and drive 20 yards... turn right onto SE Preston Way and drive .4 miles... park on the side of the road... note the trailhead sign on the far left of the photo behind the fence.
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The trailhead doesn't mention East Tiger... however, this is where we started.
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After hiking a short distance you will reach a power line road... turn west on the road and walk by 4 or 5 homes on the left and one home on the right.
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After walking the power line road for ~.5 miles, leave the road and head uphill... still no mention of East Tiger.
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larman takes the high road while Denali Girl and Nanda take the low road.
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Still no mention of East Tiger, but we will use the Bootleg Trail.
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Tiger Mountain can be very confusing.
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Several small stream crossings along the way.
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After hiking a total of 3.3 miles we will take the Paw Print Connector.
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A short distance from the Paw Print Connector sign we found a couple of ornaments that mark the start of the short side trail to the xmas tree.
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Kind of disappointing to find that there weren't any presents under the xmas tree (2250').
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We backtracked from the xmas tree to the Paw Print Connector and soon found the first evidence that we might actually reach East Tiger.
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We reached this junction after hiking on the East Tiger Trail for an hour... we will go uphill to the right.
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10 minutes later we reached this road... where we will turn right and head uphill.
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The last 150 yards to the East Tiger summit is on a dirt road.
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At the summit (3004') we met nwhikers East King (Greg), Bear Queen (Rebecca) and one of their friends. They had hiked in from Highway 18.
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I asked East King to show his famous pose.
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Our group on the East Tiger summit... very nice views to the south and west from this summit.
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Lots of moss on this trip... we got a late start today and will need to hustle to get back to the cars before dark.