A rough climber’s route, it is an unrelentingly steep, rooted, rocky, muddy torture test, a crucible in which the summits of summer are forged. The old trail up Mailbox Peak holds a special place among the hikes off I-90. What inspires such reverence? The original route, which entails 4,000 feet of climbing in less than three miles. And the unforgiving route gives Seattleites a proper excuse to grumble-or truly earn impressive views and earn a little surprise.You may have heard Mailbox Peak mentioned in slightly hushed tones, the kind reserved for stories about some legendary storm or a bad accident. With the proper preparation, gear, and outlook, the mailbox is within reach for even casual hikers. It’s easy for hikers to get in over their heads the top is only halfway through the journey, after all, and coming down is the crux of the trail, where knees and ankles give way.īut for all the trail demands, it remains a Seattle favorite and rite of passage. Hefta-Gaub is also a search and rescue volunteer, and he’s responded to distress calls on both trails covering “all kinds of things.” Twisted ankles, hikers lost upon nightfall, and heat exhaustion are common woes, and he has even rescued overextended pets that couldn’t make it down. Seven-plus laps on the Old Trail is crazy-and challenging. “I just like to get out and experience nature and pick crazy ideas that sound challenging and then go do them.” “What more celebration would you want?” he marveled. He celebrated with a parking lot nap after finishing the challenge at 1am. “If someone Everests, we will give them a pineapple,” he remembers, “I think they maybe had a dozen.” Fueled by Twinkies and a rotation of friends who ran laps with him, the 49-year-old walked away with a pineapple that fall day. Hefta-Gaub's friends came up with an idea. The trail held an air of intimidation for the vice president of product engineering at a local tech company. He was surprised on his first visit to the infamous Old Trail route he made it up in decent time, and there really was a mailbox up there. His newest tradition is an annual trek up to catch the last sunset of the year each New Year’s Eve. The summit boasts a mountains-to-Sound panorama-Rainier, Glacier Peak, the Olympics, even the Space Needle on a lucky clear day.Įven for an experienced endurance athlete with Ironman races under their belt, Mailbox Peak loomed large in Brad Hefta-Gaub’s mind. In summer, hearty bear grass flowers line the path fall and winter bring a blanket of snow to the route. Six-tenths of a mile from the summit, the routes merge to wind through a jagged boulder field with impressive Cascade views just below the perched mailbox. Friendly vandalism graces the white diamond trail blazes of the Old Trail: “Keep on coming” one encourages. The Old Trail is a product of their footsteps as they picked the most direct path upward-far from the careful planning around drainage and erosion logistics that go into trail creation today.īoth routes remain open to hikers, and both weave through the forest with far-off streams babbling below. He challenged youth at the nearby Lutheran Valley Camp to summit and sign the register tucked inside the mailbox as proof of their success. Department of Natural Resource (DNR) records cement local legend: The idiosyncratic locale was birthed on Fourth of July weekend in 1960 when Seattle postman Carl Heine lugged a mailbox to the rocky peak. That’s partly because it was never meant to be a well-trafficked destination. It’s almost unheard of to have a popular trail this steep. Stairmaster training won’t cut it Washington Trails Association’s Anna Roth describes sections of the Old Trail as full-on scaling tree roots. But Mailbox Peak’s Old Trail has sections with a 60 percent grade, almost twice as steep as the average household staircase. Most hiking trails sport a 10 percent grade, meaning they climb 10 vertical feet for every 100 horizontal feet traversed.
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