7 miles of hiking • 2500' elevation gain •
B-Dog dragged me up here for a little pre-season snowshoeing, but the trail is popular with cross-country skiers with bladder control issues. We hiked back to Source Lake - a little, half-frozen booger of a pond - and then decided to head up onto the ridge for a look at Snow Lake.
The snow was like concrete on the ascent, so I made like I was running out of steam so B-Dog would go on ahead and kick in some boot steps. We had lunch and hot coffee on the ridge a short time later and enjoyed the views.
The snow had softened in the afternoon sun, so we took a different route down to avoid some sketchy areas in the gulley where I could hear water rushing underneath. I opted for Yak Trax on the descent, and strapped my snowshoes to my pack. Not well enough, apparently, because one fell off and went sliding down the mountain into the aforementioned gulley. I considered leaving it there, or convincing one of the 800 Japanese tourists to pick it up, but went ahead and just glissaded down to retrieve it anyway. I hit a deep post-hole at the bottom of the slope, and wrenched my knee pretty bad.
I've been blacklisted by SAR in this state, so a helicopter ride was out of the question. I had to basically scoot on my ass like a dog with worms for the remaining 9 miles to the trailhead. Between that and B-Dogs "short cuts," we didn't get back to the car until midnight. Thankfully, the sun was still up because I didn't bring a headlamp.
