Sunday, December 18, 2016

Ranger Falls and Green Lake Snowshoe

 Drove up to the Carbon River Entrance of Mt Rainier National Park to go snowshoeing. We headed up to Ranger Falls and Green Lake a hike of about 10 miles and 1,100+ ft of elevation gain.
The first 3 miles are along the now decommissioned Carbon River Road. There was a light amount of snow on the road. This is a nice forest. Saw reflections in ponds and small streams along the road.
 There were icicles hanging from rocks.

 Nearing 3 miles, the view opens up to see the Carbon River.
 At 3 miles, there is a sign showing the side trail up to Ranger Falls and Green Lake, this is where the majority of the elevation gain is on this trail.
 View of Ranger Creek going to the Carbon River.
 There are some large downed trees that are easy to walk under on the way up to Ranger Falls (they have been this way for some time).
A mile up this trail is a short 200 ft spur trail to Ranger Falls. It was so pretty with the frozen water.
 Large icicle near the falls
 From the falls it is an additional 0.8 miles to Green Lake. Here we found more snow on the trail.
Before long, there were no more tracks to follow and the snow was deep enough that we wore our snowshoes and broke trail up to the lake.
There was one new downed tree that was low enough that we had to crawl under.
 Ranger Creek
 Log bridge over Ranger Creek

Frozen Green Lake:

There are lots of very tall trees along this trail. As the day warmed up, I saw the largest snow bomb.

















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