Mowich Lake Snowshoe

 We decided to snowshoe up to Mowich Lake in Mt Rainier National Park today. In the winter, the road up to Mowich Lake is closed to motor vehicles, this makes for a nice snowshoe path without going through any avalanche chutes. There are a couple of places you can take short cuts to skip some of the road switchbacks. Our trip today was 8 miles with 1,400 ft elevation gain.
The road up to where the gate is closed is full of potholes, but free of snow today.

 We were able to hike up 1-1/2 miles before deciding to put our snowshoes on.

 There were several small waterfalls along the edge of the road.

 Today was cloudy with mixed rain and snow. The snow covered trees made for a beautiful snowshoe trip.

 Another small falls along the road

 Where we saw the first sign for the Grindstone Trail. We didn't see any of the flag markers, so we decided to continue on the road up.

 Further up the road, we saw the second sign for continuing on the Grindstone Trail, and decided to hike up this section.

 We easily found the trail markers higher up in the trees. There were also previous snowshoe tracks to follow as well.

Back on the road, we saw many icicles.

First sight of Mowich Lake

 We hiked down to the shore, the lake was mostly covered in ice and snow.

 It was cloudy,

  and very quiet. We didn't see any other people on this trail today

 On the way back down, we followed both sections of the Grindstone Trail and were able to find the flags the entire way down. On the lower section of the Grindstone Trail, there were a few bare patches on the trail.

 Back on the road, it started to snow again.

 more icicles














Almost back to the car, we saw some deer next to the road.