27 April, Monday -
When the sun came up it was shaded by clouds and the wind had picked up so it wasn't as warm as we had hoped it would be. Puffy coats and wind pants kept us warm enough to eat breakfast and we soon were packed up - no dew either night meant the tent was almost dry - except for part of the floor that was sitting in a puddle resulting from over-energetic lawn sprinklers. After a couple of quick stops for gas and for depositing the funds from the fly-in we headed north and up the Methow valley. As we began to climb beyond Mazama, we encountered more and more snow on the roadside until it was higher than the car. About a mile west of Washington Pass we stopped at the small pullout that had been plowed for the Blue Lake Trailhead. We swapped our flying gear for winter hiking/snowshoeing equipment and climbed the snowbank to ge
t to the actual trailhead. We had a perfectly good map but the summer trail was totally obscured by the feet of snow so we followed some old ski tracks in the general direction of where we thought (and the GPS showed) the lake should be. The first half mile or so was heavily forested but not too steep, then we hit a wide avalanche chute. Trees were bent over and covered and there was a lot of wreckage strewn around. We stayed near the edge and started climbing pretty steeply up, then it got even steeper. Clearly the summer trail (2.2 mi) took a much less direct route than our 0.75 mile beeline (gaining 1200 ft). The new, smaller snowshoes allowed us to traverse the slope when it wasn't too steep or too firm. After crossing a stand of trees we climbed another avalanche chute, this time using the snowshoe crampons to "frontpoint" straight up. One more tree-covered ridge stood between us and the lake, so we climbed that as well to where we could look down at the snow and ice-covered, narrow tarn at about 6200 ft. I didn't mention that the views had been getting progressively better and better. We could look back behind us to the north to the mountains across the North Cascades Highway, and to the east we could see towering over us Liberty Bell and the Early Winters Spires. We picked a suitably scenic spot for lunch and rested for a while before tackling
the descent. Neither of us were sure how to proceed - snowshoe down?, slide on the snowshoes? Take off the 'shoes and glissade? or "heel down". We tried all four and the best method for the day's conditions was to just walk straight down plunging the heel in on each step. We were able to get almost all the way to the car before starting to sink more than a few inches into the snow. The rest of the drive down the North Cascades Highway was suitably scenic with waterfalls, distant mountains and mountain lakes. We stopped for gas at Costco in Burlington and for some groceries and a sandwich at Safeway and were home around 2030 - a good night for a soak in the hot tub. Tomorrow we've got a lunch date with our tax preparer and her co-conspirator, Bill Beck at Easy Joe's in North Bend (a reincarnation of Robertiellos, then Gaston's).
When the sun came up it was shaded by clouds and the wind had picked up so it wasn't as warm as we had hoped it would be. Puffy coats and wind pants kept us warm enough to eat breakfast and we soon were packed up - no dew either night meant the tent was almost dry - except for part of the floor that was sitting in a puddle resulting from over-energetic lawn sprinklers. After a couple of quick stops for gas and for depositing the funds from the fly-in we headed north and up the Methow valley. As we began to climb beyond Mazama, we encountered more and more snow on the roadside until it was higher than the car. About a mile west of Washington Pass we stopped at the small pullout that had been plowed for the Blue Lake Trailhead. We swapped our flying gear for winter hiking/snowshoeing equipment and climbed the snowbank to ge
t to the actual trailhead. We had a perfectly good map but the summer trail was totally obscured by the feet of snow so we followed some old ski tracks in the general direction of where we thought (and the GPS showed) the lake should be. The first half mile or so was heavily forested but not too steep, then we hit a wide avalanche chute. Trees were bent over and covered and there was a lot of wreckage strewn around. We stayed near the edge and started climbing pretty steeply up, then it got even steeper. Clearly the summer trail (2.2 mi) took a much less direct route than our 0.75 mile beeline (gaining 1200 ft). The new, smaller snowshoes allowed us to traverse the slope when it wasn't too steep or too firm. After crossing a stand of trees we climbed another avalanche chute, this time using the snowshoe crampons to "frontpoint" straight up. One more tree-covered ridge stood between us and the lake, so we climbed that as well to where we could look down at the snow and ice-covered, narrow tarn at about 6200 ft. I didn't mention that the views had been getting progressively better and better. We could look back behind us to the north to the mountains across the North Cascades Highway, and to the east we could see towering over us Liberty Bell and the Early Winters Spires. We picked a suitably scenic spot for lunch and rested for a while before tackling 
the descent. Neither of us were sure how to proceed - snowshoe down?, slide on the snowshoes? Take off the 'shoes and glissade? or "heel down". We tried all four and the best method for the day's conditions was to just walk straight down plunging the heel in on each step. We were able to get almost all the way to the car before starting to sink more than a few inches into the snow. The rest of the drive down the North Cascades Highway was suitably scenic with waterfalls, distant mountains and mountain lakes. We stopped for gas at Costco in Burlington and for some groceries and a sandwich at Safeway and were home around 2030 - a good night for a soak in the hot tub. Tomorrow we've got a lunch date with our tax preparer and her co-conspirator, Bill Beck at Easy Joe's in North Bend (a reincarnation of Robertiellos, then Gaston's).
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