I Goren sized Mt. Si yesterday from my place in the U district. So in the thread a while back discussing Goren Kropp's tragic death at Vantage Erden Eruc suggested the idea of "Goren sizing" various mountains by doing the entire approach by human powered means. (Goren had climbed Mt Everest by riding his bike with all his gear from his home in Sweden to the base of the climb.) Yesterday I left my apartment in the U district a little after 8 am. I rode north on the Burke-Gilman trail, started south on the Sammamish River trail before cutting east on the Tolt Pipeline trail, then connected with the Snoqualmie Valley trail in the vicinity of Duvall. The Snoqualmie Valley trail takes you past Carnation and ends near the town of Snoqualmie. I couple miles of pavement and you can pick up the Iron Horse trail which takes you most of the way to the Mt. Si trailhead, where I arrived at about 1:30. Up and down Si and then riding back the same way got me home at 11 pm.

Obviously a rather small beginning, but continueing up the Iron Horse trail would open up all kinds of possibilities in the I-90 alps, although pretty quickly an overnight trip would be required. The bike route is not the most direct, but has the decided advantage of being almost entirely on seperate bike trails and free from traffic. The Snoqualmie Valley trail is in particular quite pleasant as it takes you through farm land and over old tressle bridges.

Cool!

Post a route map?

That sounds like an awesome trip! Nice job!

i've done this once a year for the last couple of years. the first time, my time was similar to yours but I've gotten it under 12 hours, mostly by figuring out the most efficient bike route.

i think the fastest way is on a bike is actually to go south, cross i-90, get off at newport way and follow that to issaquah, then take the gravel bike road (issaquah-preston trail) from the new overpass at the east end of 'quah. that ends a few miles short of preston, but there's good shoulders most of the way. then hop on the deceptively named preston-snoqualmie trail (deceptive because it dead-ends before snoqualmie). leave the trail where it crosses the preston-fall city road and coast down to cross the river at fall city, then turn right and follow the highway past snoq. falls, snoq. and into downtown north bend. i park the bike at the little si trailhead and take the old trail to the summit as it is more direct.

yeah forrest, there's definately a shorter line, i just like getting away from the cars.

my route in purple:

yeah, the snoq. valley trail is nice. i like how it just cuts through the farmland instead of following right next to the road like so many bike trails. the only thing i don't like about it for the big day is that it is too flat (old railroad grade), the route i outlined above actually has a lot of hills both coming and going - less boring, less (for me) knee fatigue because of varied pace.

Nice to see ya back on the horse Greg! Skiing this winter?