Ranger Creek Trail and more winter hike Washington

We originally planned to snowshoe along Hwy 410 where the road is closed, because the avalanche danger had been set at considerable. There wasn't much snow there, so we decided to do a lower hill hike for conditioning. We decided to hike up to Little Ranger Peak from the east side, going up the Ranger Creek Trail. In November, we had hiked up to Little Ranger Peak from the west side on the Palisades trail. We couldn't find the parking on the "right" side of the hwy or trail signs from the highway leading toward the Ranger Creek Trail. Finally, decided to park near the Snoquera Falls trailhead and hike 2 miles up the White River trail to the Ranger Creek Trail. From the description in the hiking book, we thought once we reached the Ranger Creek Trail, it would be 2.6 miles to Little Ranger Peak. We found out that only took us to a look out, so we kept hiking. We hiked out for 7 miles from the car with about 2000 ft elevation gain, 14 mile round trip.

 The first two miles were along the White River Trail, a nice hike in the woods. Once we reached the Ranger Creek Trail, the trail begins to climb, with many switch backs. We started at 3000 ft

 After another 2.6 miles and 800 ft elevation gain, we reached the short spur to the look out. We enjoyed the sunshine and the view to the east. The trees to the right blocked our view of Mt Rainier.

After another 2.2 miles and another 1200 ft elevation gain, we reached the shelter. We were now hiking in snow, but it wasn't deep. No snowshoes needed today.











We decided to keep hiking to see if we could reach Little Ranger Peak. We hiked about another 1/2 mile along the ridge line at 5000 ft. We got a little glimpse of a view between the trees, but it had clouded over and there wasn't much of a view. As the trail started to descend toward Little Ranger Peak, it was 2 PM, our turn around time.
We didn't reach Little Ranger Peak today, but we had a great day outside today!