The weather's been getting warmer and warmer. So warm that the river out back is slowly rising and the snowpack is starting to drop for the first time in months. Add some rain at the Pass and the snow that was so glorious a month ago is getting sloppy and soft.
Still, nightshoeing is nightshoeing so I called the Lymans and let them fight it out. Daryl was the first night snowshoeing victim and Michelle was second. Seemed only fitting one of those two should help wrap up the season.
Daryl and I left the house at about 8:15pm and got to the Pass 15 minutes later. We parked in the Summit West parking lot and walked back under the freeway just like we were through hikers on the PCT. The snowshoe trench started at the upper PCT parking lot, or so the trip reports posted online indicated. The "trench" was, in fact, a highway of ice surrounded by soft snow.
We only had a few moments where we had to choose the right tracks to follow. There had been so little fresh snow and so many others in the area that in a few spots it was only the GPS that showed the way. Tokul loved it regardless. She ran up and down the trail with reckless abandon. Occasionally, she'd fall off the packed snow and up to her pits in the slush.
We made it to Commonwealth Creek without too much trouble. Of course, that's where the trouble was expected to begin and it didn't disappoint. We had to drop down a 15 foot bank to the water below, cross the creek, and then find a way out. Tokul showed us that it was no big deal, but lacking paws with claws we had to take it slower. The creek was barely flowing so we could easily cross without getting wet. We found a spot where we could climb out without too much trouble and found ourselves in a creekside meadow.
The trail headed up toward the saddle between Guye Peak and Cave Ridge, our original destination, but 15 minutes up the trail found us in the woods with no views so we opted to turn around rather than continue up the hill.
Back in the meadow we chilled with hot chocolate and a variety of liquors. Tokul had a few sniffs of J?germeister, but I stuck with Kahlua and Peppermint Schnapps in my cocoa. We headed back as the moon lit up the landscape. As usual, it was way quicker to get back than it was to get out. The freeway thermometer showed the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees, but it was still above freezing even at midnight.
So much for the snowshoe season.
Total distance was about 3.3 miles with a gain of 900 feet.
