From Terrence's WTA Report:

We are the Mountain Goats, Terrence (13) and Nathan (16), and today one of us (Terrence) climbed Baring Mountain.

The climber's trail behind the bathrooms was easy enough to find and follow. The cutoff to the right came much sooner expected, and we ended up going by it about 1,000 feet before we realized our mistake and turned around. Look for the pink where the creek is coming down the slope. The first mile is everything that you have read - very, very, steep. In fact, according to SummitPost, Baring Mountain is the third steepest mountain/hike in Washington State. It is straight up, and the dirt, mud and vegetation (with a few large rocks to go up) make it slippery and a challenging. Heading straight up the the ridge (first mile) you gain nearly 2,000 feet. The trail is relatively easy to follow, with the pink tape helping out.

Once at the ridge, the next mile is the easiest part of the route. Relatively flat, with some elevation loss and regain. After another 3/4s of a mile, it's back up, up and up, through the woods towards the boulder field. We took a wrong right turn and ended on the south side of the boulder filed, so we had to drop down a couple hundred feet to get back on track. The field itself was slow going. Recent snow has not melted, and so you have slippery rocks, snow and ice. We didn't use microspikes or axes going up, but poles were handy. We found it helped to stay on the left hand side of the chute heading up.

Once at the saddle, it was pretty easy to follow the remainder of the trail up to the summit. There is actually a fairly well defined path here, and there are a few more pink tape markers and cairns. As you head up towards the summit, you will head slightly to the left, making your way to the left of the final rocks that make up the summit. There was some snow here, but mostly rocks. Recognizing the steepness with full snow might be tough, without snow, this part is actually pretty easy compared to the boulder field and the forest below.

We enjoyed fantastic, clear, 360 views and ate lunch a bit below the summit do to a pretty cold breeze. We left the car at 8:40 am and got to the summit at 1:15. Coming down we donned micro-spikes which definitely allowed us to make much better time down the north summit pyramid and down the chute and boulder field. Coming down the final mile was, of course, knee-busting, and slippery, but we felt like we made good time, getting back to the car at 5:00.

We saw only one person on the trail, who started late and didn't make it. This is an infrequently traveled path, but a very challenging and enjoyable adventure for this willing to endure the steepness. Very nice late summer/early fall hike in a beautiful area!

Our GPS clocked 6 miles round trip and 3,945 feet in elevation gain