Mineral Jane, Dec 8th

So what else can you do from Barlow Pass? Well, you can definitely try Mineral Jane. I did this once before trying to reach White River which we never did. After hours plowing thru the snow, we finally got tired, turned left and got back on hwy35 to walk back to the car. That obviously left me wanting to explore more. Looking at maps, there are a couple of trails in the area which are not marked for winter navigation. Trying to follow any of these is a bit of a challenge. On top of that, there’s water. Once you get to the meadow area, there are several creeks that flow south. To this day, I haven’t found bridges or an “easy” way to cross. The couple of times I’ve been in the area, we’ve opted for the biggest log and just crossing on top of it. Certainly this is no easy task. On one side you have the freezing running water bellow which you certainly want to avoid and then, you have the snow/ice accumulated on the log that makes crossing with snowshoes a bit tricky. With all that we still decided to go and try it again. It was a beautiful day in its own way. Yes, the pictures don’t show blue skies or even sun, still the scenery was beautiful with a million shades of grey. We did have a couple of extra challenges as there wasn’t enough snow to bend and cover all the vines. Although it sounds as improbable, we were bushwhacking in the snow



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