Actually - we did this hike yesterday - with the luck of the Irish! Margaret must be Irish for ""the weather folks don't have a clue!"" This St. Paddy's Day found Hiker Jim, cousin Clover and the driver joining me for a romp up the long road for a hike up the short trail. The initial thought was to go all the way east to something likely to be a dry hike - since the prediction was 60% of rain in the mountains on the west. But we took our chances. Planned a 7:00 a.m. departure (someone[?] was hoping for an early start so they could get back and watch the Cougs, but someone[?] forgot their snowshoes and we had to make a detour back to grab them - good thing too.) Got to the parking turnaround about 8:20 a.m. and we were hitting the road at 8:30 a.m. - half dozen trucks/trailers for snowmobubblers parked with us. Seems all of the passenger cars were down at Gold Creek (why?) and none at the Kendall Lake trailhead. The temperature was mild and the skies were blue with a few clouds.

The road Zamboni had done a great job of grooming for the snowmobiles - and it was early enough that the snow was still hard - booting it was easy. You know the drill - you walk a long way on the road (got to get the driver some XC skis to do these long road walks so she will quite whining). Got up the road a piece - with snowmobiles zipping by - Clover did her darnedest to try and catch one of them - never did. Hiker Jim brought out the shades and didn't have to take them off until about a mile from the car on the way out. The walk up was relative quick because the snow was hard - we made good time. Took us about an hour to get to the summer trailhead parking lot. From there, it's just a 100 yards or so to the spur road and the actual trail up is about a mile or so from where you take the spur. Thinking we had finally left the noisy snowmobiles behind as we made our way up to the clearcut and put our snowshoes on, because the snow was soft. Unfortunately, we were joined by a few of the 'bubblers as they came to play in open areas.

We continued a steady climb up and entered the trees higher up than we did last year - cutting a lot of the ups and downs from that trip a little more than a year ago. We crossed some old ski tracks and a few snowmobile tracks - but finally we were alone. We reached the ridge in almost no time and followed it - crossing what would have been the summer trail down to Lake Margaret and getting peek-a-boo views as we headed toward the false summit. The trickiest part of the whole day was right when we were about 25' below the false summit - last year it had been a little icy at this spot, but it was pretty much straight up; this year, there was this odd cornice, with a little shelf under it - the lip of the cornice was about 5' or so above the shelf. Clover figured out exactly how to navigate to the summit - walking along the shelf. The snow was in good shape - nice and solid - but if you should lose your footing, there was a chute with a drop-off waiting for you! So the driver went first and edged along the shelf. Then Hiker Jim also inched along the shelf, breaking off some of the cornice to widen the traverse route. This is the third snow trip to Margaret in the past three years - and each time the snow at the false summit has been different. The first year, we had to take our snowshoes off, because it was all exposed rock; last year was icy and this year was just fine. We continued along the ridge and then dropped down about 87' to the saddle between the false summit and the actual summit and then climbed up through the trees about 100' to the top of Margaret. The winds had picked up a little before we reached the summit - but they weren't bad, so we stopped for some lunch - about 3 1/2 hours to reach the summit (approx. 5+ miles). The weather was very mild and we took in the views - the clouds were rolling in. After about a 1/2 hour, we decided it was time to head back - hoping to beat the rain. Once we reached the clear cut area again, the snowmobilers were gone - and the snow had softened a lot. We got a couple of glissades in (wet butt glissades) and kept the 'shoes on until the end of the road back at the parking area turnaround. Not a drop of rain on us! Stats: 10+ miles; 3100' gain; 5 1/2 hours. We were heading out by 2:30 p.m. and hit rain right at the summit and all the way to Issaquah. Glad we opted for Saturday instead of Sunday!