Pack Peak View

Day 190: I've been hiking in Pack Forest for enough years to remember when you actually had a view from either of the two high-point destinations, Hugo Peak and the unofficially-named "Pack Peak." Pack Peak is the highest of the two by about 300', and your "window on the world" looks roughly northwest over rural lands outside of Eatonville. Hugo affords a glimpse of the city itself, although if the trees get much taller or their branches get much longer, you won't even have that much. Oddly, Hugo is the more popular destination, perhaps because it's closer. Being Crow, I prefer to hike a few extra miles to the solitude of Pack Peak if I'm going to be out for the whole day, making an eight-mile loop of the 1000 and 2000 Rds. without necessarily having to retrace my track. There's plenty of latitude for variation. Among others, the possibilities include Windy Ridge, a side trip to Hugo, the Reservoir Trail, Butterfly Alley, or if I'm really feeling inspired, trying to find the route through a section of the New Forestry Loop which hasn't been maintained in years. For a relatively small place (at least when compared to Mount Rainier National Park), Pack Forest gives you a lot of places to go, although not particularly diverse in terms of mini-ecologies.