Snowshoeing!

I've been wanting to snowshoe here in the Pacific Northwest. We never got to it last winter so I've been waiting for the right time to go this winter. It was late January and the weather was clear for a good 5 days. We planned our trip for the weekday so as to avoid the weekend crowds. Sno Park pass for the day was needed-a whole $4! I guess if we went all the time we would get a season pass. Then we had to decide on a destination.  Going towards Mt Hood on Highway 26 gave us plenty of options. Glacier View Sno Park and hike around Enid Lake or go to Ski Bowl West and hike the trail to Mirror Lake were some of our choices. Checking some of the trail apps gave information that turned out to be incorrect-and pleasantly so...more on that later. We chose Glacier View and if it didn't work out Ski Bowl West was the next place to stop on the highway. So on a Monday morning we headed up early. Traffic wasn't bad. In time, my Google Maps app told me we were minutes from our destination yet there was no snow. Oregon is low on their snow levels for the year, maybe there isn't any snow at Glacier View and we will have to go higher. But just as I rounded a corner, there it was-lots of snow. Ok then. It turned out that Glacier View was not a Sno Park that Oregon Dept of Transportation kept plowed. It was too icy and we didn't have any traction tires or chains on the car. On to the next destination-Ski Bowl West. I read on the app that you had to hike down the highway for a 1/2 mile or so to connect with the trail to Mirror Lake. That didn't sound very appealing. But it turned out that last summer a trail was completed that took you from the parking lot to the Mirror Lake Trail. It has 9 bridges that were air lifted in to establish this trail. We have found that Oregon takes very good care of their trail system and this is a good example of that. So off we went

   

The first picture is one of the bridges they air lifted in. Later we had to cross this other bridge-not one of the new ones-with our snowshoes on. It was tricky but doable.  Most of the trail was snowed over but there were some spots with bare ground. We just left our snowshoes on. The snow was pretty icy and probably a better choice would have been spikes or crampons. Sounds like a good birthday or Christmas gift idea. Problem is that I would need to remember that as those holidays land towards the end of 2019.



Mirror Lake looks like Mirror Snow Field. There were tracks going across it but it didn't seem such a good idea to walk across. It had been warm lately and we didn't trust the ice.

   

A hike around the lake revealed a nice view of Mt Hood. I hear in the summer the mountain is nicely reflected in the lake.

   



Our snowshoes are older. We got them in CA years ago at Sams Club and had used them two times. There are probably better ones out there now, but these worked out fine.

This creek crossed our path many times 

Our path thru the snow 

                           

               

The trail ended up being a 4 mile trek. There were uphills and downhills. It wasn't too much for us. Back at the car we decided to go up the highway to check out some of the other Sno Parks. The town of Government Camp had one but it was not free. Up the highway a bit there was Snow Bunny Sno Park and Trillium Lake Sno Park. Both of these looked to be plowed by ODT with nice size parking lots, and to use them you needed a Sno Park pass. I think next time we will snowshoe the Trillium Lake Trail. Both of these Sno Parks had areas that the kids could use a sled so maybe we need to take a trip with the grandkids!