Snow Bowl Hut Overnight Snowshoe

We had reservations to spend the night at Bruni's Snowbowl Hut, one of MTTA's huts near Ashford. Although the upper Sno-Park lot was open, the weather forecast was for 4 - 8" of new snow, so I felt safer parking at the lower Sno-Park. This made our trip 8 miles round trip with 2,200 ft of elevation gain. There was only a little snow along the side of the road by the parking area, enough to pull my sled.

By the time we reached the Upper Sno-Park, there was close to 8" of snow and it began snowing heavily.

The entire route is up closed forest roads. This is a great place to snowshoe in poor avalanche conditions as there are no avalanche risks along the main routes.

















There are several streams along the way.

We took turns pulling the sled.
We had some breaks from the snowfall.

It was a winter wonderland with all the fresh snow.

The turn off to Snow Bowl Hut is about 2.5 miles from the lower parking area. As we crossed the saddle towards the Snow Bowl Hut, we had some blue sky.

After enjoying a nice flat area along the saddle, the road again climbs uphill. I was happy to see the roof of the hut peeking above the trees.

Snow Bowl Hut!

On a clear day, there are great views of Mt Rainier, Mt Adams and Mt St Helens. Today we only had views of local hills, but they were beautiful with all the new snow.

In the evening, the full moon broke through the clouds for a while. (very fuzzy photo taken with my phone).

Snow Bowl hut at night.

In the morning, there were too many clouds to see the lunar eclipse. I walked to the gazebo a short ways down the ridge.

As we snowshoed back down the trail, I enjoyed all the snow covered trees and landscapes.