Elevation Gain: Approximately 2500 ft.
Time: 8:00 am - 2:00 pm
Weather: Cool, sunny, clear skies, beautiful day.
Sometimes I get this great feeling about a hike early in the week. I know the weather is going to be amazing, I have an awesome hike picked out, or I am excited about those friends of mine who might join me. On Monday morning, Creighton walked into my classroom, and we planned to hike on Saturday. We had no idea where, but we knew we would go snowshoeing. The forecast early in the week was for great weather, but in the PNW that can always change. With each passing day, the forecast looked better and better. I spent a lot of the week asking friends about any potential good snowshoe hikes, and I finally found one I have not done in my snowshoe book on Thursday. Then I asked another good friend, my colleague who was on the Marmot trip with me in August of 2010, to come along and he was down. This would be our first hike since that trip. We planned on meeting at 6 am, to be walking by 8 and to be back in Tacoma before 6 pm.
We were on the road by 6:10 am, and we were at the trailhead by 7:55 am. We were geared up and walking shortly thereafter. The hike starts out in the winter snowshoeing the road up to the summer parking lot. It is about 2 miles of road walking, but today the snow was so crunchy and solid we didn't even need our snowshoes on the road. We walked along at a nice pace and at about 9:45 am, we saw a nice path up to the ridge through the forest. We stopped, put on our snowshoes, and began walking up the ridge.
I am always glad to snowshoe with Creighton. He is an animal in terms of pace and endurance, so he took off breaking trail ahead of my friend and I. My other friend is the cross-country coach at my school, and he too is a mad man when it comes to pace and endurance. It wasn't long after we started that I was in the back of the pack, following their tracks, and enjoying the forest by myself. We came up on the ridge and dropped down the other side to a nice big landing. We could see a nice saddle between some peaks a good distance up from the landing, and we saw what would be a path through the forest and out on the exposed ridge. We took off together, but soon after I was again on my own. It was a long steep climb. I popped out of the forest after what felt like forever, and we were standing below the peaks we had seen below. The trees had thinned out and the peaks looked so inviting.
We walked up to the first peak together. When we reached the top, the view north was breath-taking. We think we were looking at Mount Stuart. While I may be mistaken with the name, there is no mistaking the beauty of the Cascades. The gnarly, snaggletooth rock outcroppings covered in snow look so spectacular bathed in sunshine against a blue sky. I will never get over how beautiful Washington State is. We could see the other peak was higher elevation, so we walked the ridge over to the other peak. When we got to the peak it was 11 am. We took an hour long break. I had brought two thermoses of hot water and fixed everyone a hot chocolate. I had two. We enjoyed some water, snacks, and each other's company. We took some pictures, packed up, and began walking out at noon.
The way down was a lot of fun, especially getting down off the ridge. All the elevation we had gained, we got to run down at nearly half the time it took to get up. The sun was shinning so bright. It was truly an amazing day. We were back on the road where we finally put our snowshoes on at 1 pm. We took our snowshoes off and walked out. We were back at the car by 2 pm.
Orchid: Hot cocoa and good friends.
Onion: Broken buckle on my pack because I hung my snowshoes on a weak strap.
Picture:
Google Map
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