Many Wonderland Trail hikers describe the Emerald Ridge area as one of their favorite special places around the mountain. It's possible to visit here as a long day hike by heading up the closed-to-cars Westside Road, hiking the South Puyallup trail to South Puyallup Pipe Organ, then turning right onto the Wonderland Trail.

If you ride a bike up the Westside Road, the hiking portion is reduced to 6.9 miles with 2200' elevation gain.

Once off the road, the hike starts through lush old growth forest, then ascends the spine of a ridge that seems at times implausibly narrow. Footing is sometimes loose and rocky, and there are several spots where it would be uncool to slip.

Erosion is affecting this trail as parts of the ridge periodically fall away. A section at the top of the ridge was rerouted in 2021 after the previous trail location collapsed. Lower down, there's a short but steadily deepening washout, pictured here as of July 2024, at which time I didn't fancy how narrow and far down it was so chose to bypass the washout by scrambling over the top of the ridge instead. The trail has since been rerouted at that spot.

After climbing and climbing and climbing some more, arriving at the top of the ridge will instantly heal all soreness while taking your breath away for a different reason than the climb. This is a relatively level marvel of lush vegetation, often carpeted with incredible blooms of flowers, marmots everywhere, overlooking the Tahoma Glacier which is stained orange by mountains of pulverized rock, while above you lie the glorious heights of Tahoma herself.

If your legs and lungs are up for more, continue south along the Wonderland as it descends from Emerald Ridge. This takes you into a fascinatingly desolate landscape of glacial moraines and debris from the countless lahars that have scoured this area over the centuries. 2600 years ago, the Round Pass mudflow came from Sunset Amphitheater above you to the left, and 500 years ago the Electron mudflow originated from the headwall of the Tahoma Glacier above you to the right. Combined with countless smaller more recent lahars and the moraines of recent glacial retreat, they've left this area a mess. The mountain looks ancient and broken here, lacking even a proper summit.

Continue as far as you like. An additional 3.9 miles round trip with 1450' elevation loss/gain will take you all the way to the spectacular and fun-to-cross suspension bridge over Tahoma Creek. This section of trail is shown as the dotted portion of the map, and not included in the above distance figures.