Of course, by the time he was ready to go out I was sidelined with the whole stupid broken ankle thing. Not that I'm bitter about missing two months of the snowshoe season or anything, but ARGH.

So finally, we found time when he'd be in town and I could get away for a morning. We've found that Clara's not so good in the snow (just wait until next year), but Lilly is a natural... at sleeping in the backpack. Clara was equally good so it wasn't really a surprise. It was also the day before Tokul's sixth birthday so she was added to the party as well. We got to the Alpental parking lot about about 10am and were soon getting geared up.

Grandpa's snowshoes have a funky new binding that are way too easy to put on. I struggled to figure them out expecting them to be significantly more complicated. How could they possibly work if you just pulled a single strap? Turns out they worked pretty well. It wasn't until the very end of the trip that he had to retighten them and that took only a moment. Getting them off was also super easy, but I still like mine better. (Envy is ugly, huh?)

Ok, back to the story. We started up the hill from the trailhead and quickly realized Grandpa was way overgeared. He ditched a flannel shirt and down coat in the trees and we continued on. The weather was gorgeous if a little warm. The blue skies were only rarely obscured by clouds. The snow was a little soft even in the morning, but still decent (barely) for snowshoeing.

As usual, finding the trail for Source Lake was an issue for me. I don't know why it should be that big a problem. We wound up too high and had to drop through the woods until we came across a fairly well-defined trench. From there the going was pretty decent. Unfortunately, the up and down was a little more than Grandpa Jack had bargained for. He was expecting to walk on a flat trail so the rolling terrain wasn't ideal. (Can you say Gold Creek? Yes, Amy did suggest that would be better than Source Lake. Humph.)

After crossing the first avalanche slope (with a couple of old slides that ended above the trail) we stopped to assess our situation. Grandpa was inclined to go back until a couple of others came by. They were headed for Snow Lake (perhaps a tad ambitious given the conditions) and inspired us to continue. We followed their trail down the hill toward the river and continued into a meadow with a view upstream and the lake basin beyond.

By dropping down we had lost the elevation needed to get to the lake so we abandoned those plans. My father confided that he now realized that expecting to see a blue lake with fish jumping was not too realistic given there was oodles and oodles of snow. (Remember, he's a die-hard fisherman not necessarily a hiker or snowshoer.) Having gotten a great view of the mountains I was satisfied so we made it our goal to cross the river and get to the road on the other side.

Hmm... yeah. Cross the river. How exactly were we going to do that? The South Fork is a decent sized river down here, about 17 miles from the source, but way up there it's just a little stream. It was, however, big enough to have melted the snow above it so it was about 15 or so feet to the running water at the bottom. Clearly impassable. We continued upstream following tracks that periodically went near the river to assess crossing possibilities only to turn back to the safer meadow each time.

Finally, we found an area where the stream must have broken into a couple of channels and each of the channels was crossable by itself. I wouldn't bank on it being passable in another week or so, but we did manage to get over to the road. Grandpa was quite happy to be on the relatively flat and mostly downhill route back to the upper lots of Alpental. We slipped out of our snowshoes and stepped on to the muddy parking area only then realizing that his shirt and jacket were still at the base of a tree above the trailhead.

Had it been up to him, he'd have left them for someone else to find. However, after getting Tokul into the truck and setting up Grandpa and Lilly with a bag of cheese and a bottle I buckled myself back in and huffed up the hill to the hiding spot. In short order I was back at the car and we were heading down the mountain to lunch at home.

The walk along the river and the road back probably saved snowshoeing for Grandpa Jack. With luck I'll get him out again. Probably at Gold Creek, which will do just fine. Of course, that will only be if the snow returns (it is snowing a day later, but how long it will last... dunno). As it was, we did only 2.3 miles and gained about 500 feet, but at least the tags are off his snowshoes.