Friday. Drove 4 hours, including 1 hour on the 16 mile gravel road following the signs (the sign says 20 miles) to Snowgrass Flats trailhead south of Packwood. Large parking lot. All but ours are SUVs. We hit the junction to Berry Patch trailhead quickly. Ignore that, continue Snowgrass trail (#96) 3.6 mi to the junction with Bypass Trail (#97). Instead of turning left heading uphill to the Flats, stay straight, passing a creek (over small logs or rocks). It started raining in earnest. I decided to stop at Bypass Camp: a good size camping area in the woods next to a small lupine + huckleberry meadow with a stream (not far from the creek). A group of 3 friends from Olympia (yes, work for the state government) scattered their tents in the area. We asked for their consent, of course. Setting up tent in the rain is a bad idea. Got everything wet. I had my nephew change into dry clothes in the tent and stay inside. Katie came and invited us to their camp fire, which I happily complied. They roasted hot dogs! My nephew had a couple. We swapped some other food items. I'm mostly impressed with the aluminum saw Evan brought. It's large and lightweight. Despite the pouring rain, they kept the fire going. Rain tapered off after 10pm, but we chatted until midnight. Very nice people. Bright stars amidst dark tree branches. Cold night.Day 2 - Got up to make breakfast. Soon John rose and started fire with wet logs. I don't know how they do that. My nephew sat by the fire, while I packed. We continued on the Bypass Trail until hitting PCT. Turn left (north) on PCT, to steadily increasing views. Settled off PCT at the next major trail junction. Sunny, very few clouds. This time, I showed my nephew how to setup a tent. Then I went down ~10-15 minutes to fetch water in a tiny stream. The view here is great: Adams and St Helen to the south, and grassy meadow all around, now full of white bistorts and pearl everlasting. Not much red or blue. Lupine is mostly in seed. I laid our wet stuff on rocks under the sun.
After some rest, we headed north on PCT with just a day pack. Grass soon turns to rock and snow. Clouds move in, but still sunny enough and not cold even on snow patches. A large crew of elderly people were doing trail work here. My nephew stopped at the junction of two PCT alternatives (he took a nap!). View is splendid. Goat Lake, Mt Rainier, a beautiful basin with some sheep looking white dots. I continued on the leveled trail to the next junction to see McCaw Basin. Equally beautiful, and you can see both! On the way back, I decided to take the original PCT (not a good idea). It goes up on a razor edge of rocks, and continued up more rocks. When I saw the down slope, I was already half way to Old Snowy. So, Old Snowy I went. 
~6,400 ft. More rocky and snowy on the east side, somewhat bleak. But the view of Gilbert Peak and Ives Peak is quite nice. Of course, once you reached the top (hands come in handy: I left my poles somewhere lower), it's a 360° view + an animal skull. Too bad, so much clouds, that Mt Rainier can be only seen its bottom.
It started raining on our way down, and then it hailed, for at least an hour! The rain continued off and on till ~6pm. My stuff got wet again. My nephew crawled into the tent, changed to dry clothes and stayed there. He ate his dinner in the tent, even though I had been telling him NO food inside tent. Around 7:30pm, I made him come out of the tent. With all the clouds, sunset was quite colorful, but not good for stars. I need to come back on on a clear night, maybe a week earlier for the flowers.
Day 3 - sunrise is too early for kids. I enjoyed it very much, even though too many clouds. We packed up, and down along PCT all the way to Cispus Basin. 
Another lovely basin - my nephew's favorite of this weekend. It's a flat 1 mile from the junction, if not less. Green, waterfall. We picked up our packs at the junction, backtraced all the way, and arrived at the car ~2pm. Uneventful driving back to Portland, except that it rained for a couple of hours: that's a weekend forecasted sunny on NOAA!This is my nephew's very first backpack trip. Despite the rain and thin sleeping bags, he said he would come again if the weather is better. I'm very glad.
We stopped at International Rose Test Garden before going home. To my surprise, still so many roses. Lovely!
