McDonald Mountain

McDonald Mountain is situated adjacent to Kangley, east of Maple Valley and south of North Bend. I hiked there Tuesday afternoon with Roger Matthews and Mary Vesper, following an old logging road to about 2,080 feet of elevation before we retraced our steps. We were all a bit out of shape, and the hike was a useful drudge that tired us all out.  Using Map My Hike software I measured the distance back to the car at 1.97 miles for a round-trip hike of four miles.

Washington Trails Association's figures for elevation gain are a bit confusing: The summit is listed as 3,750 feet, with a gain of 3,500 feet. My phone altimeter and figures from May My Hike show the starting point to be above 900 feet, so the figures don't make sense. WTA details can be found at their McDonald Mountain page, which includes an interactive map.

Roger has put in an effort to maintain the trail by digging steps or inclined side paths where the trail confronts undulations in the terrain, so today he and I each carried mattocks during the hike with an aim of improving the trail. That idea was discarded, and we just focused on the hike, which was comparable to Rattlesnake Ledge or Little Si, for as far as we went. I believe the hike lasted about 4 hours.
Distance: Approximately 4 miles (6.4 km)
Elevation gain: 1,100 feet
Load: Less than 10 pounds.


Total distance for the year: 152.08 km
Total elevation gain for the year: 4,000 feet