Lots of snow!

Todays storm turned into not much of one. Came and went in 4-5 hours. Of course, that means the winds were insane. Bet it wasn't much fun above tree line.

By about 2, it cleared up enough to go out and play, so went and did a couple mile loop up Fallsway, Valley Way, Randolph path and Air line.

Valley Way was reasonably packed down already, but there was a couple of inches of fresh snow on it from the morning. Get off on unbroken trail and it's a real work out. Ran into some deep drifts. We got some serious snow from the storm earlier in the week. Conditions should be good for playing in the snow this weekend, it will be on the chilly side though.

Attachment 44669

This pool of water is at least 5 feet deep and is at the bottom of what is normally a 20 foot high cascading water fall. Only that pool is showing from under the snow.
Attachment 44670

These trail signs are normally at eye level.

Ha.... we got dumped on at low elevation a couple weeks ago. We have a low-elevation hike that I can normally do year-round with 2000 ft of elevation gain. You get snow at the top in the winter but most years, I hike it right through winter with nothing but microspikes.

I got to the base yesterday and there was over 5 feet of snow and significant avalanche hazard and no broken trail. Breaking trail in 5 feet of snow up a 30 deg. slope is one hell of a workout. I went a mile doing that with snowshoes and turned back. I'll let the young bucks and some warmer weather break that trail.