Snowshoeing at Bennet Pass, March 21st

For this weekend I was kind of tired of work so I was not sure if I wanted to lead a hike or not. Being stronger than me, I ended up posting a hard, long snowshoe for the day in the Bennet pass area in Mt Hood. For this particular event, only Madhu and Carol joined me which made the hike a lot more fun. To top that, weather forecast was a complete mix so we didn’t know what to expect. After our nice drive to the mountain, we started our hike with a very cloudy, grey day that soon afterward cleared up. The first portion of the trail was a wide open road surrounded by trees on both sides. We did notice that with the high temperatures of the previous days, snow had melted a bit forming what is known as the West Coast Concrete. Basically the snow gets so packed and heavy that it feels like walking on peanut butter. Not only you sink into it but you have to lift some of the snow to move your feet. Yes, it’s a workout. In fact, the original plan was to do 11 miles and we ended up doing just 7. After walking for a while on the road, we got a clearing with open views to the valley were Tea Cup lake is. As you’ll see in the pictures, views were amazing even though clouds were covering Mt Hood. From that point on, the trail narrowed and started a really steep ascent towards what is known as the Terrible Traverse. This portion of the trail, which in the summer is just a road (believe it or not), gets all the snow drift from the mountain. This creates a steep slope that continues down for hundreds of feet. When avalanche conditions are high, it’s wise to avoid this trail. After passing the first portion of the traverse where we had to climb up and down over slopes and big snow banks, we got to the really hard part. At that point you find yourself walking on the side of the mountain almost wishing you don’t slide as it would take a long while until you reached the bottom. The rewards of doing this is the amazing views you get from the turn out. Shortly after passing the traverse, weather started turning on us so we had to cut the snowshoe short and return.