My second time up the ridge, with the same beautiful weather as last Christmas Eve. This time the boys stayed home since they hiked yesterday, and I went with some human friends instead.
There must have been 10-plus snowmobile trailers in the lot when we arrived around 9 AM. Luckily, we only had to inhale fumes while getting ready and then a little bit at the top of the ridge. Other than that, we got off the road relative early and snowshoed our way through woodsy slopes to avoid any further damage to our precious respiratory systems.
There was more snow this year compared to a year ago, this time the tower was all covered in white—beautiful! Top of the ridge was a bit chaotic, one would think we had accidentally stumbled into a snowmobile convention or something. We managed to find a nice and somewhat peaceful area to eat lunch and to absorb some heat from the sun.
We stayed long enough to chew some fat, take photos, and enjoy the views of nearby peaks. The peaks west of Snoqualmie Pass were especially gorgeous dressed in their new, white winter coat.
One nice thing about snowshoeing is that you can take shortcuts to save time, if the terrain allows. We did just that going back down, and must have shaved off at least a quarter of a mile to half a mile back to the parking lot.
Bring your snowshoes if you plan on walking through woods to get away from the noise. Otherwise, the road shouldn’t be fine even without snowshoes, assuming that it hasn’t snowed in a week.