CJ's Jaunts: Mt St Helens snowshoe 2/22/2014

6 miles 780' EG

Today we headed up to do some snowshoeing on Mt St Helens.
We parked at Marble Mountain Sno-Park with plans of going to June Lake.

When we go to the Sno-park, there were a lot of snow-mobilers already there. Surprisingly, we found a parking spot right in front of the TH.

getting started

We started up the trail. The trail was in great condition. After a little while along the trail, we came to an opening in the trees to a nice snowfield.

Continuing up the trail, we realized that it was just going to keep climbing. It was a nice slope. We came to a steeper section of trail. The picture below doesn't do it justice.


a nice "little" hill

At the top of the hill, we came to a group of four that seemed to be having some issues. We noticed that a few of them had been post-holing (they did have snowshoes but were not using them for some reason). We passed them by and eventually they caught up and passed us. And then we came upon them again. One of the girls had post-holed and her entire leg was swallowed up in the hole. Cher saw her toss her poles into the bush in some sort of tantrum(at least that's what she looked like she was having). As we passed them again, Cher asked " Dont you have snowshoes?" and the reply was "yeah, but we thought it would be easier to not use them". After we got further away we couldnt help but laugh. And at the same time, we were slightly annoyed ant the holes in the trail they made that we had to navigate around.

My little snowbunny

We passed a few people on the way up that had mentioned that the trail to the lake was pretty difficult due to the snow conditions, so we opted to just go up 244 and try to make it to the Loowit trail junction.
About 1/4 mile from the Loowit trail, the hill got steeper and the snow got deeper, so we decided to turn around.

beautiful snowy trees and trail

Us at our turn around point

representing "Team Sparks"

We headed back to the lake trail junction and found a spot for lunch. After starting to rehydrate our beans and ham and making up some hot cocoa, we noticed the little camp robbers (grey jays) had started to congregate nearby.

Cher enjoying some cocoa

hanging out and waiting

Jen enjoying her cocoa with a little something extra

come a little closer

"can I have some beans and ham?"

all warmed up

We spent about 40 minutes enjoying the birds and lunch. Eventually the post-hole gang came down the lake trail with reports that the hill was impassible. We wished them a good afternoon (they all had their snowshoes on at this point).

After a warm-up and re-energizing, we decided to get headed back to the car.
As we were heading down the trail, it started snowing. We stopped to watch the flakes and noticed that the flakes were perfectly formed little shapes...like one would only see under a microscope(at lease thats what our impression was).