Heliotrope Ridge Time Estimate

UPS represent! Let me know if you make it south and we can tour around here Snoqualmie/Stevens.

a 'city' hick would be 'c hick' , not bad ay ?

Six hrs for normal folks (not Dan the man and others like him) that are fit is possible, but it depends on trail conditions and you will mostly need to keep moving. If you can take more time – do it. The area can be pretty foggy too, which completely sucks on the glacier.

Last year in early November, I took two full laps (~1000 ft each) and was car to car in around 6 hrs. Conditions were perfect for a quick trip. We could hike the trail in running shoes to the base of the glacier with no issues. If the trail is clear, it is about two hours up and 1.5 back. That leaves plenty of time for climbing/skiing the roughly 1000 ft of glacier at the top of the hogsback.

Snow level varies this time of year which will influence your travel time. Earlier this October there was enough snow to skin well below the glacier. Last weekend, this snow was gone. On a couple of other trips I’ve taken this time of year, the trail has been very icy (i.e., wet snow fall; lots of people tracking it; then freezing to an ice glaze) and as a result, slow both up and down.

It also speeds things up if you know exactly where you are going, but there are a bunch of trip reports with good directions on that topic.

It is a great place for early season skiing.

Thanks for the help! We're planning on leaving a little bit earlier and it turns out my partner's got the green light to show up at work smelling funky so we should be good to go. Just stoked to be getting out whatever happens. Should be c-hick for sure.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. We left Bellingham for the trailhead at 6 and made it back to the Ham before noon. Sub six hours including driving time...OH WAIT, my alternator died in Glacier and we never even made it to the parking lot. On the upside, with no tour and a tow truck on the way, I've never had a better reason to drink a couple beers in a gas station parking lot before 10am.

Huge thanks to our early morning savior. He was rushing to meet up with the rest of his party but still took the time to give us a jump!

We ended up needing to get jumped twice more in order to make it into cell range. Pretty exciting coasting across the nooksack bridge as the battery cut out. Hooray for momentum!

Looks like those with working vehicles should have a heckuva day. At least from glacier, the cloud to blue birdy ratio looked pretty stellar. Having committed to ski, I'll back up there tomorrow to at least have a go at things. Hopefully the grey golfball isn't too impenetrable.

Thanks again for the help with tour time estimates!

I believe that under the circumstances, everbody would be good with you changing your penname to c-hick, Most excellent