This turned out to be the deepest snow that I have ever had the pleasure of snowshoeing in - bar none! Emiko, Doug and I arrived at the Alpental parking lot at 8 to find that it had not been plowed yet this year - and was full of two feet of new snow! Not to be deterred, we donned our snowshoes and headed up towards Guye Peak.

It was slow going! It took us three hours to gain 1000 feet out of our goal of 2000 feet. At times, the snow in drifts was up to our chests and each step was at least two feet deep. At 11, we had a group discussion and decided that the best goal for the day was the exercise, the beautiful scenery, and the joy of being out together - and we could forgo the summit!

Going down was also challenging but quick! We were back at the car before 12:30 and I enjoyed my hot chocolate as we drove home.

We calculated that the snow had accumulated three feet in the previous 24 hours - and a great time was had by all.

The trail starts about 50 feet down (towards I90) from the Snowlake trail. It is unmarked and looks like an overgrown road at first.

A couple hundred feet up ... it turns off to the right and the trail becomes very narrow, very rocky and very steep. But, it is easy to follow up to the turn off with Snoqualmie Mountain.

At the sign ... head up and to your right thru the rock scree field. At first the trail seemed to be kind of hard to follow but after the first small hill ... I started to see some "rock piles" that kept me going in the right direction.

At the saddle ... turn to your right ... after 100 yards or so ... you will be at the small pond. I went around the right hand side of the pond and kept going uphill to the top.

A very nice hike overall. The PHONE BOOTH has been removed ... See comment below.

Trail is in good shape. Yes there is water on the trail, and mud. Lots of wildflowers. Just a slight bit of snow left at the saddle and a couple small sections on up towards Guye peak, no need for crampons or ice axe.

Flickr: http://bit.ly/guye-peak

Standing just under 5,200', Guye Peak looked like a piece of cake. That may be the case in the summer months, but not on this day of snow and wind.

Shortly after leaving the Alpental ski area and going up the slope, I found some old snowshoe tracks that seemed to be leading toward the junction. I followed the tracks for a while before they disappeared just before the junction. The wind grew stronger and the snow continued to fall as I tried to find my way to the upper meadows. The upper meadows is where I left the trail to Snoqualmie Mountain behind and headed south toward Guye Peak.

On a clear day, Guye Peak would probably be in full view from the meadows. After descending down to the col between the meadows and Guye, I ran into two hikers having lunch east of the col to doge the wind. They had come up from the Commonwealth Basin side on crampons and ice axes. From this point, it was just a matter of following the ridge line and climbing straight up to the summit. A couple of tricky spots to maneuver through but that was about it.

The summit was extremely windy without views. But shortly after I arrived, about half of the clouds miraculously dissipated, which allowed me to take some quick photos of Alpental and Cave Ridge. There was no in fighting the wind on the summit to set up my camera for a self portrait, so I got down about 100 feet to get away from the wind, the snow continued to fall.

Got back down to the ski area just before dark.