Toning hike on Tiger Mountain

Mid-morning on the "bus" trail at Tiger Mountain's Highway 90 Exit 20.

With our new plan for climbing Mount Adams in as soon as another week, it was time for some more conditioning or toning hikes. I chose toning today and headed to Tiger Mountain West Trail #3 with John Anderson. My pack was a light 8 pounds and I wore my Asolo hiking boots, not my mountain boots. I also was in such a hurry I forgot to carry a snack more than an apple. Fortunately John had energy bars to share.

We didn't start on Tiger 3; at the trailhead we headed east to see the carcass of an old bus along the side of a trail, where we spotted an enormous shelf fungus growing off a dead tree, pictured below.

The shelf fungus, situated behind the abandoned shell of a bus that once transported loggers.

Afterwards, we ascended the Nook Trail. The entrance to that trail was adjacent to the bench in the photo, at the top and led to the Talus Rock Trail, which includes small caves formed by massive boulders.

A young woman crawled into the opening of this cave for a photo taken by her mother.

Our objective was the 2.2 mile marker on Tiger 3. We cut over from the Nook Trail's merger with the Talus Rock Trail to rejoin Tiger 3 and headed to the 2.2 mile marker, where my GPS phone app indicated we were at 597 meters in elevation. We hiked at a very leisurely pace, completing the hike in more than four hours. When I returned home, I performed an internet search and came up with a Google Map that showed my GPS readings were right on. The screen capture shown below came from the Web address https://www.mapcoordinates.net/en.

Statistics for the day:
Distance: 4.5 miles
Conditions: Sunny, not hot
Load: 8 pounds 
Elevation gain: 1,458

Statistics, year to date:
Distance: 169.6 miles 
Elevation Gain: 52,928 feet 
Next Goal: 57,644 feet (fourth Rainier)