Elevation Gain: 2644 ft.
Min: 3207ft. Max: 4509 ft.
Time: 9:00 am - 1:15 pm
Weather: Cold, foggy, overcast. One glorious sun break!
A great snowshoe trip again today. I love that I get to start another blog entry with that last sentence. There is a lot to say about this trip so let's get going...
First, I went out dancing with a friend and his roommate. He lives up near Seattle, so I spent the night at his place, and I joined him on a snow shoe trip he had planned with his buddy. So the three of us set out for Alpental at exit 52 on I-90. This was such an easy drive from Seattle, so from Tacoma it would not be bad either. I will be doing some more hikes in this area soon. I guess one reason I have avoided this area is the fact that I have no avalanche training. The conditions today were perfect for snowshoeing, I had been checking www.nwac.us and www.noaa.gov religiously this week, hoping for safe conditions.
The second thing I want to say about this hike is I finally used my phone gps tracking app perfectly. The first time I used it was for a hike that I did not blog about that was on Saturday Jan. 2. The next week on the hike at Hurricane Ridge the white-out snow conditions did not allow me to get a decent signal. The next week was the MTTA - High Hut school trip, I did not remember my phone. I left it in the car. And last week, I forgot to turn it off until 15 minutes after I got in the car and drove about 6 miles. This week it was perfect and you can see the track here.
The hike started easy enough on a snowed over road, but the wide lane aburptly changed to a trail wide path through the trees along the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River. In what seemed like no time at all, we were at Source Lake, right below the saddle between Chair Peak and Snoqualmie Mountain. Now according to my new snowshoeing book, this trail is realtively busy in the summer, but "come winter, only a few hardy folks make the long slog through deep snow to the glorious lake basin." Now if this is referring to the slog down the saddle to Snow Lake, they were correct. But at Source Lake and up on the saddle it was like a day in the park. There were tons of people around. Including an avalanche training course which put my mind at ease, knowing trained professionals were around.
The hike up to the saddle was tough. The slope was steep, and the snow was slick in parts. It was easy for my downhill shoe to slide a bit. I fell twice but did not slide down far at all. We made it up to the saddle and the clouds and fog in the valley and around Chair Peak suddenly began to dissipate. The sun came out, and the beauty of Chair Peak covered in snow fell upon our eyes. It really is indescribable. We walked in the saddle and while it was still clear, we caught a glimpse of Snow Lake in the basin below. It was covered in snow and appeared frozen over. This was confirmed only minutes later when we saw a group of cross-country skiers moving across the lake.
We also wanted to walk on the lake, so we set out down the other side of the saddle. Except for the first few minutes, we got to make our own way mostly through untouched snow as we went down to Snow Lake. I started sliding down and using my poles to steer. This was so much fun. As I went down I would accumulate snow in front of me and get about 10 feet of snow infront of me moving. We were on the lake, literally, at 11:15 am. We walked out a ways and had a snack.
The walk back up was the hardest part of the day. I enjoyed the walk up, but I was definitely working. When I\we got back up to the top, we were back in the crowd. When I started my hikes, I remember being annoyed by the crowds, but now I like to see people in the backcountry. As one of my good hiking buddies has said, "it is good for humanity to have more people experiencing the natural world." I couldn't agree more. As we were walking along the saddle, visibility had dropped to almost nothing. You could not see more than 30 to 40 feet in front of you. The walk back down to Source Lake was also a lot tougher on the way down. The snow was moving a lot, and it was easy to slide and slip down. There were even more people moving up, and with limited visibility I could not see them. So, Unfortunately, I could not choose to slide down this slope like I did to Snow Lake.
We got down soon enough though and continued walking on through the trail. We did miss a turn and found ourselves seeing a waterfall we had missed on the way in because we were off trail now. We walked up through the fresh snow and made it back to the trail. It was a great day.
Orchid: The sun break in the saddle.
Onion: Forgeting my camera. (My buddy had is and he let me carry it)
Picture:
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