Chocolate Falls, Jan 19th

After doing June Lake, I realized there are a lot of trails and routes that start from the Marble Mountain Sno-Park. One of those is Chocolate Falls which I had read about before. As a hike it didn’t interest me that much because it was not very long and by the description, perhaps not that impressive either. The name comes from the fact thatthis is a small creek that comes from the top of Saint Helens picking up minerals and dirt. Once it reaches the rock wall, the water looks brown like chocolate. The part that hadn’t occurred to me, was this route could be done in winter. So I got there, started my slow ascend towards the waterfall and soon realized that this trail is also the winter climbing route to Saint Helens. Yes, there were a lot of people heading up. I also saw a couple of big groups doing some rescue training which was cool. What wasn’t very cool (and I didn’t know) is that it seems that the creek freezes in winter so the waterfall is dry. Still the route offered some really nice views of Saint Helens and the south cascades. Training to make the route a bit more interesting, I did a bit of backcountry going over the moguls on the lava field. It was quite eerie as you saw rocks and little crevices and cracks in the snow. It was a bit of a guessing game trying to find a safe route thru that stuff. Once on the other side, I continued to June Lake for a bit to complete the loop.



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June Lake, Jan 12th

About three or four years ago I joined, just for a brief period of time, a photography group with the intention of learning some tricks and improving my photography skills (which I’ve gotten by simple trial and error). I went to several events with that group including a snowshoe to June Lake. That’s when I learned about this little lake tucked away in Mt St Helens. I know I had read about it before as being a short hike and a long drive which is why I hadn’t done it. With the photography group I learned that in winter, part of the access road is closed so you have to snowshoe in from Marble Mountain. This adds some distance making it more appealing. Wanting to try something different, I decided to do June Lake and maybe extend with some explorations going over the worm flows. What ended up happening was a bit more interesting. With a small group of friends we headed there and started from Marble Mountain following a trail that parallels FR83. That part of the hike is not very interesting, especially due to the noise of the snowmobiles that fly by on that road. I remembered from my first time that, at some point, we needed to cross a creek to get on the trail to the lake, but before we got to that point, we found a fork in our path. It looked like the path to our left was more direct so we took it. That led us straight to the creek, not to the bridge. At that point I checked the map and it looked like we could backcountry from that point on to the lake so we started meandering next to the creek. It was a really nice time as we plowed thru new snow on an area where there’s no trail. As we got higher, some challenges started presenting in the form of steep slopes going straight to the water. Although some of us had the right gear and experience to continue, we finally got to a point where we had to turn around. Yes, there was a bit of frustration as that was cutting the possibility of going around the Worm Flows but we managed to get back on the road fairly quick, cross the bridge and get on the actual June Lake trail. He trail was very well marked and pressed that you could have actually made it without snowshoes. Finally we got to June Lake just when the weather was starting to change and the sky was turning grey. We stopped there for a quick bite while we enjoyed the waterfall and the many ice teeth it had. In the end, even though we didn’t do the loop I had in mind, we had a fantastic day breaking trail in new snow.



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Angel’s rest, Jan 1st

Happy New Year! --- Wow, it took me almost four months to get here. Sorry, I’ve been incredibly busy lately and haven’t got time to continue my journal. But here I am, again, this time with a very short post. Not because I don’t have much to say but Angel’s Rest is probably the best known hike in the Gorge. Don’t believe me? Just sit in the parking lot for a couple of hours and you’ll see the parade of hikers coming in and out of the trailhead. One word to clarify here, I’m calling them hikers although not all of them are. Being one of the most accessible hikes in the Gorge we, real hikers (I’m not trying to insult anybody here) often see people that really shouldn’t be hiking here. This day was no exception. January first is still the middle of the winter so you’d expect it to be cold, maybe rainy and/or windy. It was very windy and cold. Still Val and I saw at least a dozen “hikers” wearing sneakers and jeans going up to Angel’s rest. In one of the pictures you’ll notice that the trail is frozen. Although the picture doesn’t give it credit, there were parts were it was just dangerously frozen, to the point that we saw everyone in a group coming down, fall on the same spot. It seems that Val and I were the only ones there with traction devices (thank you micro spikes – best ever) and from the few with trekking poles. Anyway, it was a short hike that we did in a handful of hours just to burn a bit of what we ate the night before. It was a very windy day to the point that we were not able to reach the actual viewpoint in fear of flying of the mountain. Beautiful day and great way to start the year…. Oh, and those pictures were taken with my new camera (I’m still in the process of re-learning with this one)



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Ghost Ridge, Dec 29th

Most of the time, when we go snowshoeing, we get anywhere from some cloud cover and limited views to full grey skies with no views. On those days, we have to conform with trees, valley, creeks and the multitude of shapes that the snow makes. But every now and then we get a perfect blue sky day, that even with some patchy clouds here and there, makes the whole experience a complete different thing. This was one of those days. Certainly Ghost Ridge is a route I’ve done multiple times. Sometimes mixing it with Palmateer point and Devil’s Half Acre. This time the idea was to visit Palmateer Point as well but that spectacular weather didn’t last long and my route finding skills were a bit off. So even though the actual route as pointed is about 5 miles, we ended up doing almost 7. Nevertheless we got a real treat. Not only he snow was that perfect fluffy, soft white stuff that you sink in with every step but the views of the mountain and snow covered trees was outstanding. I’ll let the pictures do the talking now



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Barlow Ridge, Dec 22nd

Barlow Ridge is one of my, at least once a year snowshoe route. It follows the same way as the mineral Jane but once you get to the T junction with the Barlow Road, you turn right instead of left. Then it’s pretty much a choice on how far you want to go. Sometimes I get to a point where I veer off and climb towards Barlow Butte but this time we decided to keep it simple and just enjoy the day. The day started a bit cloudy but very soon it cleared up and we had a fantastic, clear blue sky day with excellent powdery snow. About half way up we found the end of the tracks from whoever went before us so from that point on we were breaking new trail. As we went, we took turns to be up front doing the hard work while the rest followed. We continued like that for a while until we found a sunny spot ideal for lunch and return point. Around us the scenery was incredible. The heavy snow was pushing the smaller trees down which, on the side of the hill, looked like a little army of tired monsters. After enjoying the scenery for a while and just before it got really cold, we started our way back the same way to the car.



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