Glacier Vista Snowshoe

We drove up to Paradise at Mt Rainier National Park this morning to do a leisurely snowshoe up to Glacier Vista, about 3 miles round trip with 970 ft of gain. The snow was fairly consolidated. View of Mt Rainier as we snowshoed up the hill.

For a grey, cloudy day, the views were spectacular. Looking back to the Tatoosh Range.

Mt Rainier as we continued up. They weren't very people here today, we would often look around and not see anyone, most of the skiers and snowboarders headed up to Panorama Point and CampMuir.

zoom to the west of Iron Mountain, Copper Mountain and Pyramid Peak

There were cornices along the ridge facing towards us. 

Part way up, we stopped to take a break and admire the changing sky over the Tatoosh Range to the south, We could see Mt Adams and Mt St Helens further to the south.

zoom of Mt Adams 

zoom of Mt St Helens

Another view of the Tatoosh and looking down the route we took up above Glacier Vista.

Mt Rainier  and down towards the Nisqually Glacier.

From here we could see Mt Hood further to the south

zoom of Mt Hood behind Pinnacle Peak

Eastern end of the Tatoosh Range with a distant view of Old Snowy in the Goat Rocks 

zoom of Old Snowy beyond the Tatoosh Peaks

More views as we snowshoe backed down 

There were some interesting striations in the snow caused by heavy rains earlier in the week after the heavy snow fall.

Large crack above a section of the snow near the route most people take above Paradise.

Lots of lovely cloud formations today.

 

Lake Angeles Snowshoe

We drove up to Heart of the Hills area of Olympic National Park to snowshoe up to Lake Angeles, 7.5 miles round trip with 2,350 ft gain. We used our snowshoes from the trailhead. We saw less than 10 other hikers today.

The forest was beautiful covered in snow.

Bridge over Ennis Creek about 1.25 miles up the trail.

Ennis Creek

Icicles under a log over Ennis Creek

We saw lots of rabbit prints near the trail. 

We saw what looked like a small black weasel running through the forest. Too fast for us to get a photo, but I think these are it's prints. 

Ice over a side creek

some of the icicles we saw along the trail

 

The trail was very quiet today.

View from the meadow before Lake Angeles

Lake Angeles

wide angle view of Lake Angels from the shore

 

Falls View Falls Loop

After our hike at Mount Walker we stopped at the nearby closed Falls View Campground to go see Falls View Falls. We made a loop, by doing the closed campground loop to the south along with the very short loop to view the falls at the south end of the campground. overall 0.5 miles.  These snowy branches made an arch over the view loop.

We saw some large icicles on the cliffs across the river (blurry zoom photo)

Snowy Falls View Falls

Far below the Big Quilcene River

 

Mount Walker Loop

Drove up to Quilcene to hike up Mount Walker. We decided to make it a loop by hiking up the trail and coming back down the closed forest road. About 7 miles with 2,000 ft gain.  We saw 2 other hikers on the trail and 7 skiers as we hiked down the road. The gate was closed by Hwy 101. There were several inches of snow from the highway. 

Enjoyed seeing the fresh snow covering everything.

some icicles along the trail

The snow increased in depth as we continued up the trail.

Cloudy up on top of Mount Walker, not much view from the North Viewpoint.

We had some occasional glimpses of the outline of Olympic Peaks to the northeast.

From the North Viewpoint we walked down the closed road towards the South Viewpoint.

The sun tried to break through the clouds.

Snow laden branches low down over the trail right before the South Viewpoint.

The clouds obstructed the view at the South Viewpoint.

But the trees were so beautiful in this winter wonderland!

We met a skier coming up to the top of Mount Walker as we were headed down. He told us to walk in his tracks as it would help pack it down, he would be returning several times this week to keep working on it.

Viewpoint about halfway down the road. we could see the north end of Quilcene Bay,

and at the other end the Big Quilcene River below.

Some snowy trees towering above us on some rocky cliffs.

small icicles and dripping water in a mossy niche