First off, a big shout out to the Forest Service, WSDOT, or whoever paved the Teanaway Road and then did a wonderful job on Road 9737 which is unpaved, but was regraded and is wonderful to drive on. Driving up to the trailhead was a breeze, and very picturesque. We decided to try this trail today, in hopes that by heading far enough east we would hopefully outrun the rain that was coming down heavily in Seattle, and well past Snoqualmie Pass. Indeed, luck was on our side, and today's weather provided pluses and minuses on this hike.

The pluses:
-Apparently the Iron Peak trail is very popular in the summer, but today there were just 4 other groups on the trail, which we attribute to the overcast conditions.
-The light rain kept the trail dust down to a tolerable level. Still dusty, but not terrible.
-It seems like a lot of horses use this trail, and their droppings provided plenty of obstacles, but weren't too smelly. In high heat, the smell of that much horse manure can't be pleasant.
-We didn't go through that much water.

The minuses:
-Wonderful scenery up this way, but the tops of the peaks of the Stuart Range were covered with clouds, and of course, no long range views.
-Boy, does it get windy up there. Last weekend in 90 degrees the wind would have been welcome, but today we needed wind-breakers and gloves, and time at the top of both peaks was short.

Thanks to the recent trail reports, which describe the route to Teanaway/Gene's Peak pretty well. We had a little difficulty getting on the right trail from Turnpike Pass. We stayed a bit too much to the left/west, so that by the time we got to the gully, we were caught in the cliffs. It was pretty easy to pick our way down, cross the gully lower, and find the trail, thanks to the numerous cairns. It's a pretty easy scramble up the summit, other than the mountain having a lot of dust and loose rock, resulting in occasional slippery footing. The views from Teanaway/Gene's are fantastic, and we'd love to get back up here when the skies are clear for better views of the Stuart Range. We were the only ones to do this peak today - everyone else did Iron only - but it's totally worth it to climb this peak. It's only about a half hour from the pass, and the views make it well worth it. It also provides a bit more of a challenge than the well-traveled trail. We added to the cairns on the way down, to make the trail easier to find for those who follow.

At the pass, we made the ascent to Iron, which is a nice walk up, with some great views as well. The wind was really picking up at this point, so after a quick lunch, we made a hasty retreat back down the trail. Total travel time for both peaks, including 15 minute breaks at both summits was 5 hours and 15 minutes round trip. A great hike on a day where doing anything west of, or on top of the pass would have been extremely wet. We had maybe 10 minutes of rain at most.