Ghost Ridge, Dec 5th

With the snow already here, I wanted to take a small group to a nice snowshoe near MT Hood to a place called Ghost Ridge. Originally I had thought I hadn’t been there before, but as soon as we got to the ridge, the views and surroundings became very familiar. I was pretty sure then that I had been there but couldn’t remember when or with whom, although I can remember it was not in the winter. The snowshoe in itself was not very exciting although the rewards were very good. For the last couple of weeks, it has been unseasonably cold in Oregon with temperatures barely reaching over the freezing line in Portland. That, plus the fact that we didn’t get precipitation at all, meant very consolidated, hard, packed snow up in the mountains. We did use the snowshoes but mostly for traction rather than to float on snow which made the hike very noisy. Ghost ridge is a small peak off trail from the PCT. It can be reached from both, the Barlow Pass Sno Park or Frog Lake. I decided on Barlow knowing it would be a bit easier. After meeting at the trailhead, and gearing up for the very cold day. We headed out on the PCT towards Twin Lakes. At about a mile in, where the trail veers to the side of the mountain, I started to look for a good place to go off-trail thinking I would have to navigate to the ridge. With the lack of new snow, there was no need to navigate. Very soon we found a user trail that was very easy to follow all the way to the top of the ridge. The views were very good but not fantastic. The cloud cover was low enough to cover the mountain and there was enough wind to make it really cold. We continued on the ridge for a little while until we found a sheltered area to stop for lunch. From there we continued down the side of the ridge until we realized we were o the wrong side. After a quick adjustment to our bearings, we climbed back to the ridge and then hiked down until we got back to the PCT. I can’t say it was a great snowshoe outing although it was interesting.