From Wallace Falls to Little Si to Poo Poo to Big Si

On May 26th we started the hiking training for Nepal with a visit to the hikes by Hwy 2. Wallace Falls was the season opener. The hike is about 30 minutes east of Monroe and it starts very easily under some power lines that go behind the town of Goldbar. The hike consists of 4 waterfall viewpoints and has also a mountain bike trail that loops around the area. After around 45 minutes you get to see the first set of waterfalls. If you continue to the following viewpoints, the hike gets a little stepper but nothing too difficult for beginners. It seems like, from my own experience, viewpoint 3 gives you the best view out of all 4 viewpoints.
Definetly a good hike for starters!
The following hike was the hike to Little Si. This hike is typically very crowded but since we went early in the season, it was alright. The beggining of the hike might be intimidating as it starts very steep but it then turns in a slow ascent to the top. Make sure to stay on the right trail: after the steep part at the beggining of the hike, the trail divides in two. Stay left at this fork because the right side will take you on a very different trail which takes you to Big Si via the Boulder Garden Loop trail. We did try this route on a different day which is described below.
On the way up you get to enjoy some of the walls that mountain climbers use to practice their skills. Apparently these walls, which are halfway into the hike, are heavily used to practice in the Seattle area. This hike should be pretty quick and you get some good views of the Snoqualmie pass, the mountains surrounding I-90 and of course Big Si. Definetly recommended for begginers but probably not for someone completely new to hikking.
Since the summer finally arrived and we get sunlight until around 10pm, we also tried a day hike to Poo Poo Point in Issaquah. The trail head is past the historic downtown of Issaquah, right after a paragliding center. The mountain is used mainly by paragliders as a launch site. It is crazy to believe that these guys carry all that heavy equipment up this trail to the launch site. The hike is pretty steep all the way up. The first 1.5 miles are probably the worse and then things get less steep. I will consider it still a begginer's hike but not a hike to take someone that is not into hikking not only because of the effort but because you only get a nice view of Rainier on the way there. Since we were a little late, we got to what looked like the top, had a glance at Rainier and then turned back down. It was never clear if we made it to the launch site or not but we decided to come back again at some point.
The challenge of the month was Big Si. Due to schedule conflicts we were not able to do Big Si in May but we did it on the first weekend of June. For some reason, probably the fact that we were just starting hikking around, we decided to go up Mt Si using the old trail which starts with the same trailhead as little Si. Once you get to the first fork, stay right to get onto the Boulder Garden Loop trail. Around a mile into the Boulder Garden Loop trail, you will get to the middle of the loop trail where you can get to the Old Mt. Si trail. Get up a couple of steps and make your way into the next 3.5 miles to get to the top of Mount Si. This trail is definetly not a begginers trail: lots of switchbacks, continous incline (not that bad of a steep) and lots of trees which will make things very humid and warm on a hot day! Took a long time to get up, probably because I am definelty not in shape at this point, but you get really good views at the top. This hike was rough, at some point we merged into the regular trail (at around 1 mile left to the top) and the trail was full as expected... yeah this is one of the most popular hikes in Seattle so plan accordingly. We had to park on a church 15 minutes away which btw feels like an hour after a 4 hr hike + .5 hr climb on boulders in an effort to get better views of Rainier and even Mt. Baker.
Here is a brief description of the hikes I just mentioned in this post (May-June).
1. Wallace Falls: Great for begginers. Viewpoint #3 is the best one. Difficulty: 1/5
2. Little Si: Nice views of Snoqualmie Pass. Difficulty: 2/5
3. Poo-Poo Point (picture below): Really good for a day workout. Difficulty: 3/5
4. MT Si via Old Big Si trail: Most popular hike in Seattle. Difficulty: 3(maybe a 3.5)/5

Apologize for the lack of pics! I need to make sure to bring the camera more often!

Views of Rainier from Poo-Poo point