Reflection Lakes Snowshoe

Mt Rainier National Park had been closed for over a week at the entrance by Ashford due to many fallen trees over the road. It reopened yesterday afternoon. We headed up to snowshoe to Reflections Lakes before our next big storm comes in tonight. This was a 3+ mile round trip hike with about 350 ft of gain by going via Inspiration Point.
View of Lane Peak near the parking area at Narada Falls.

It has snowed quite a bit here since this area was open, so the most difficult part of today's snowshoe was getting up to the start of the trail!















There is a lot more snow since I was here 4 weeks ago. No foot prints anywhere along this trail in front of us.
It was interesting that the trail marker poles marked the trail quite a bit differently from when I've snowshoed here before.

We broke trail the entire way and got a good workout for this short trail.

Views of Lane, Chutla and Eagle Peaks in the Tatoosh Range

View of Narada Falls below us from near Inspiration Point

We weren't expecting any views today, so were happy to see the bottom of the glacier area on Mt Rainier for awhile.

Pinnacle Peak disappearing in the clouds.

Nice to have a friend to share breaking the trail with.

Reflection Lake was covered in snow, beautiful even without a view of Mt Rainier.

Stellar jay kept us company while we took a short lunch break.

Snow and clouds as we returned they way we had come.

The Paradise River was almost completely covered in snow.

By the time we returned, we had made a nice path up to the start of the trail.

















Began snowing heavily as we left.