High Hut Snowshoe

 We've had fresh snow coming down to lower elevations, with considerable avalanche warnings. So we headed up to one of the Mount Tahoma Trails in the Washington State Forest outside of Ashford. The trail head is about 9 miles from Hwy 706. We choose to hike up to High Hut. We were able to drive up to the parking lot at 3,000 ft today and put on our snowshoes in the parking lot. From here, it's about 6 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1500 ft.

 View from the upper parking lot.

 We didn't see anyone on the trail today. There were fresh tracks ahead of us, until the trail split off and the tracks went towards Snow Bowl. We laid down fresh tracks to High Hut from here.

Even though it was a cloudy day, we had views of the closer foothills.

As we climbed, we could see Snow Bowl Hut on the far ridge.

High Hut on top of the ridge. No view of Mt Rainier or other volcanoes today.

We could see down into the valleys below us.

We enjoyed our snow covered surroundings.

 Saw a variety of animal tracks.

More snow covered beauty

 Not sure where this trail sign wanted me to go, but I wasn't climbing any trees today ;)

A very enjoyable snowshoe today.

Mazama Ridge Snowshoe at Mt Rainier

 Fresh snow up at Paradise on Mt Rainier today. We didn't expect to see the mountain, here is the visibility from the parking area at Paradise.

 We snowshoed along the Paradise Valley Road to 4th Crossing and up to Mazama Ridge. We were able to follow other's snow covered tracks most of the way up.

 Limited visibility up at Mazama Ridge.

 We only snowshoed up at Mazama Ridge for a short time, because the wind was very icy.

 We found a wind break near the trees where we stopped to eat lunch. This Gray Jay was very aggressive, flying at our faces, trying to steel our food, but we did not share.

 Even without a view of the "mountain", I enjoyed the snow covered landscape.

 So pretty and wintery!

 We headed back down from Mazama Ridge.

 Decided not to cross this narrow snow covered log as it was narrow and the snow sloped steeply on both sides.

 Enjoyed the water cascading down the creek.














The wind wasn't bad along the Paradise Valley Road, so we continued to snowshoe away from Paradise for a while before we returned to Paradise and home. It wasn't very crowded for a Saturday. We had long stretches on the trail to ourselves.
Not sure how far we went maybe 3 - 4 miles, with maybe 1,000+ ft elevation gain. An enjoyable day on the mountain.

Gold Pond and Gold Creek Trail Snowshoe

 There was fresh snow up at Snoqualmie Pass today, so we decided to give our snowshoes a workout. We parked on Lake Mardee Road where it meets NFR 144, and snowshoed up the road to Gold Creek Pond and snowshoed around the lake.

Panorama from the picnic ground on the south side of Gold Pond.

There are some small islands in the pond.

On the north side of the pond, there is a small promontory you can walk out on. Panorama from the promontory on the north side:

 Then, we snowshoed up the closed FSR to a smaller pond that has a trail going around it (0.3 miles)









The only prints we saw here, were animal prints.

Than we continued up the FSR to Gold Creek Trail. We only hiked a short way up today.

 We enjoyed the snow covered landscape and were surprised not see any other people on this hike today.

 WE snowshoed back along this creek on the east side of Gold Creek Pond.

Another beautiful day outside!

Snow Lake & Gem Lake Snow Hike

 A beautiful sunny morning today had us heading up to Snoqualmie Pass and Alpental to hike up to Snow Lake and Gem Lake. This is a gorgeous hike into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. 10+ mile round trip with about 2,200 ft overall elevation gain. The trail was icy most of the way and we wore our micro spikes along the entire trail. 
One of the many water crossings along the trail, mostly ice, but there is running water.

 Icy and snowy trail.

 Beautiful snow covered peaks seen on the way up the trail.

 Lots of icicles today.

 Snow Lake as seen coming down from the pass.

 Instead of going to the shore at Snow Lake, we continued on the trail towards Gem Lake, It was very windy here with ripples in the water, and not much reflection.

 The trail crosses over this partially iced over creek.

 Snow Lake, further along the trail, we will go up over that ridge to reach Gem Lake.

 Enjoying the views around Snow Lake as we hike around it.

 We were happy that the log crossing only had a light covering of snow and was not icy today!

 Along parts of the trail, we had nice views of these peaks over the Snoqualmie Valley

Ptarmigan enjoying the sun.

 It was perfectly calm up at Gem Lake. The lake was beginning to ice over, but we were able to enjoy the peaks reflecting in the water.

 We headed up the hillside to the north of Gem Lake, and had a beautiful view of Glacier View to the north.

We went part way up Wright Mountain, until the tracks disappeared and I decided the way was too steep and icy for my comfort level. I would like to come back up in the summer when the snow is gone from Wright Mountain to get to the top.

 Gorgeous views of the Snoqualmie Valley.

 We headed back down to Gem Lake for the views, lunch and more picture taking.

 Looking towards the outlet of Gem Lake

 More of Gem Lake

 On our way out, we stopped to get photos of Wright Mountain reflected in Gem Lake. There are a couple of hikers on top of Wright Mountain, who came up after us.

 Heading back down to Snow Lake, seen below.

 By the time we reached the shore of Snow Lake, the sun had gone down behind the peaks, and I loved the change in color.

 More icicles.

 Frozen icy covering running water.

Looking down towards Alpental from the pass on the south side of Snow Lake.