Gale force winds on Silver Star, 2/22/2015

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kdechant
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Gale force winds on Silver Star, 2/22/2015

Post by kdechant » February 22nd, 2015, 11:41 pm

As it was a sunny day, I decided to head up to Silver Star for some views of Rainier, etc. We had a group of 5 Mazamas and we planned to do the Ed's Trail - Silver Star Trail loop.

Road 4109 to the Silver Star trailhead was as bad as I remembered it. 2 miles of deep ruts and huge potholes. Our Subaru Outback made it up OK. We would later see two Honda Civics parked there. I have no idea how they didn't get stuck. There has been quite a bit of logging in the area, especially along the L1100 road. A lot more than I remembered from the last time I was there in 2011.

There was a bit of wind in the forecast, which meant that up on Silver Star there was a lot of wind. We got to the top of the ridge on Ed's Trail (before the rock arch) and were hit by wind so fierce we could barely stand up. A hiker we met on the trail had a wind gauge and told us it read as high as 69 mph at that spot. Fortunately, we were near the cutoff leading to the Silver Star trail, so we gave up on Ed's Trail and headed down there. It's on the leeward side of the ridge and conditions were much more pleasant. We hit a few more windy stretches on the way to the summit, but nothing as bad as the first one.

Got fantastic views from Rainier and Goat Rocks all the way down to Jefferson and Mt. Washington, and quite a bit of the Coast Range, too.

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Splintercat
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Re: Gale force winds on Silver Star, 2/22/2015

Post by Splintercat » February 24th, 2015, 9:13 pm

Thanks for posting -- just read Tyler's (Weathercrazy) report from the day before... less windy, apparently! Welcome to the forum!

Tom :)

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Fireweed5
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Re: Gale force winds on Silver Star, 2/22/2015

Post by Fireweed5 » February 25th, 2015, 12:14 pm

That was us with the wind meter. Yes, it was crazy windy up there that day but clear, sunny and beautiful! Views all around. Our previous attempt to do Ed's Trail was on December 14th and we encountered what seemed to be even stronger winds that day. Plus it was cold, foggy and ice was blowing out of the tree tops! We got the wind meter after that trip. We also recorded a wind chill of 24 degrees this past Sunday and the temp was about 35 degrees at the trail head. Ed's Trail is beautiful but I think we'll wait until later in the season to do it again.
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aivysaurus
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Re: Gale force winds on Silver Star, 2/22/2015

Post by aivysaurus » February 25th, 2015, 1:06 pm

Fireweed5 wrote:That was us with the wind meter. Yes, it was crazy windy up there that day but clear, sunny and beautiful! Views all around. Our previous attempt to do Ed's Trail was on December 14th and we encountered what seemed to be even stronger winds that day. Plus it was cold, foggy and ice was blowing out of the tree tops! We got the wind meter after that trip. We also recorded a wind chill of 24 degrees this past Sunday and the temp was about 35 degrees at the trail head. Ed's Trail is beautiful but I think we'll wait until later in the season to do it again.

Wow, that's insane! The last time I hiked this was the same day as you, December 14th, actually. We might have even crossed paths. I was the person in shorts! That wind that day was pretty insane to say the least! I thought I've experienced some gnarly wind gusts before that, but Silver Star that day was by far the winner. The reports I read were maybe guessing between 45-60 mph, but it was really hard to judge what they based it on. Awesome, and kind of intense to hear that they were stronger than 70 mph...

Cool little gadget you got there btw!

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weathercrazy
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Re: Gale force winds on Silver Star, 2/22/2015

Post by weathercrazy » February 27th, 2015, 9:34 am

I was up there on the 21st of January...not February :)

I bought 2 wind gauges like the Kestrel. Broke 2 at Crown Point.

In total, I have burnt through 5 anemometers up there haha.

My fellow weather geek Matt Sloan has very high quality gear which I need to invest in. Last January we recorded wind gusts to122 mph at Crown Point, that was insane.

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