Mileage: 3.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 1400 feet
Central Cascades - Stevens Pass
Dog Friendly
Difficulty: Very Difficult
Recommendations: Winter survival training and gear
Special Requirements: Snowshoes and ice axe
We stopped at Sports Authority to rent our snow shoes (only $10!) and poles. We then headed towards Steven's Pass. We parked in the lot across from the ski area and headed toward the trail head. We strapped on the snow shoes almost immediately and quickly set to work.
We followed the tracks uphill on what appeared to be a 45 degree angle at times, but our snowshoes dug right in and we made our own set of stairs in the snow. After a short, steep hike we reached our summit. It was magnificent. We had mountain views all around, clear, blue skies, and white snow on the ground. It felt like a huge accomplishment to get to an area of the mountain where not many people had recently traversed and the view was a great reward for all our hard work. The descent was a little more treacherous and led to a lot of sliding down on our butts (some planned, some not), but we made it back to the parking lot without any major issues.
The second time we did this hike we brought Jaxxon with us. We purchased a pair of booties for his feet, which ended up being a bit too small to stay on properly. Luckily we were doing it late enough in the season that it was quite warm (75° F). So, he was quite happy to be running around in the snow for hours. If you are hiking with your dogs in snow, especially in lower temperatures, you need to be very careful to take care of your dogs paws. You should have booties for your dog when doing extended snow hiking. If you can't get booties or your dog won't allow them to stay on, you should check your dogs paws every 30 minutes to make sure they aren't being rubbed raw or bleeding because of ice crystals in the snow and also check between the pads to make sure ice isn't forming as this can lead to frostbite.
Editor's Note:
Katie and I did this snowshoe for the first time more than a month ago and she was awesome enough to write hikingtrailsandpuppytales' first guest post below. I liked the snowshoe so much that I took Allison and our buddy Nick up to do it again a week ago. The below post contains photos from both trips.
Chris and I decided to do another weekday hike prior to me leaving for vacation. I let him choose where we would be going and planned to meet around 9 AM the following morning. The hike was almost canceled due to an injury that morning, but Chris made a speedy recovery and we were off on our adventure.
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| Katie at the top of the world! |
We stopped at Sports Authority to rent our snow shoes (only $10!) and poles. We then headed towards Steven's Pass. We parked in the lot across from the ski area and headed toward the trail head. We strapped on the snow shoes almost immediately and quickly set to work.
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| Steven's Pass ski resort parking lot (beginning of the hike) |
The hike was a lot more steep and strenuous than I had anticipated and the altitude did not help. We had to take several breaks throughout, but we soldiered on. The snowshoes were really cool and allowed us to hike through steep hills covered in deep snow with ease.
It was easy to keep up with the trail for the first bit, but we were unsure of the trail about halfway up. We decided to just continue uphill following tracks from other hikers. According to the WTA website the snow-covered lake was supposed to be 0.5 mile from the trail head, however we never saw any sign of the lake. We reached an open area with marvelous mountain views and were almost ready to head back down, but spotted another set of tracks heading through the woods to a peak above and decided we still had the energy to continue on.
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| Nick at the top |
The second time we did this hike we brought Jaxxon with us. We purchased a pair of booties for his feet, which ended up being a bit too small to stay on properly. Luckily we were doing it late enough in the season that it was quite warm (75° F). So, he was quite happy to be running around in the snow for hours. If you are hiking with your dogs in snow, especially in lower temperatures, you need to be very careful to take care of your dogs paws. You should have booties for your dog when doing extended snow hiking. If you can't get booties or your dog won't allow them to stay on, you should check your dogs paws every 30 minutes to make sure they aren't being rubbed raw or bleeding because of ice crystals in the snow and also check between the pads to make sure ice isn't forming as this can lead to frostbite.
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| The road where we began the hike from the summit |
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