After a stretch of cold and rainy days, we finally got a couple of clear days. Taking advantage of the window I opted for one of my favorites route to go test the snow. From the start, we noticed that snow was actually pretty low and even nonexistent in parts to the point that, for most of the hike, I used my microspikes instead of the snowshoes. Still the route was rewarding as it always is. Going up the trail proved to be much easier that other times as the trail was clearly visible. It was still a good workout to get up there and with the very cold weather, we couldn’t stop for long. We were constantly battling between not getting to hot and sweaty while hiking and getting cold when we stopped. When we finally made the ridge, we found about a foot-deep snow although pretty firm. The view point was nice but very windy so we just made a quick pass by it and then continued into the forest just for the protection of trees. Fr our vantage point we could see that the city and probably the Gorge was under the cover of low hanging clouds. We had lucked out with clear blue skies. The back-country portion of the hike took us this time thru a meadow and a different approach back to Barlow Road. When we got to Barlow Road, we had to switch to snowshoes as snow not only was deeper and fluffier. Coming down started at a good pace but then we started noticing ice crystals the size of small maple leaves. I’ve seen and taken pictures of this before but this time, the ice crystals were even bigger.
I stopped several times both on Barlow Road and then no Mineral Jane to take some more pictures before tackling the uphill back to the cars.
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