Today I snowshoed up the Jolly Mountain road for an hour or so. I went to the big view about a mile and a half in and then turned around. Today, the big view wasn’t as big as it is sometimes. Fog and mist covered the major peaks  along the crest. However, they were good views of parts of Red Mountain and Davis Peak and a ways up the Waptus valley. Snow conditions were variable. Sometimes it was sheer ice, sometimes it was mush, and in a few places I broke through the crust which is very annoying. There was plenty of snow for snowshoeing or skiing. The skiing would not be very good though due to the variable conditions. I did not see anybody out there for the time I was on the hike. This trip will get much better when we get more new snow.

The goal today was to summit, come hades or high water, given that I'd attempted the trail 2 times prior to today in the past year. I was successful in nailing the weather window, given things seem to be worsening on the avalanche condition front.

First off, I started ascending up NF-4315 from the Sno-Park near Cayuse Camp at around 06:30. It was a brisk 24 degrees F at the car, per my dash thermometer.

I booted my way up in my Trango Towers, electing to follow the road as much as possible (out of morbid curiosity). Turns out, as expected (since I looked at CalTopo earlier), the road is indeed much longer. Knowing now what I didn't know at the start of the day, heading up the road instead of donning my snowshoes and climbing made for a trudging journey.

Around 4k', I donned my snowshoes and pushed up the old snowshoe track Birb and I made last week, along with some old snowmobile tracks, but was a bit more aggressive in areas pushing directly uphill (as opposed to switchbacking) since I was flying solo.

Once I got to the top section of NF-4315 before it joined Sasse Ridge Trail, I pushed up the ridge out of habit, then rejoined the road/trail since the packed down snow from the snowmobiles made snowshoeing easier than having to break trail.

The snowmobiles stopped at the official trail, however, forcing me to break trail, so I took the ridge out of habit to cut the distance and to mitigate potential avalanche concerns.

I traversed high across the ridge, noting wind scoured snow and cornices. For whatever reason I decided to take a gamble and try to push low, but the wind slab-like conditions persisted, so I tried pushing up high as quickly as possible to avoid drainage crossings along steep embankments.

Once I got back under the trees/lower angled slopes I let out a sigh of relief and continued pushing up towards the Jolly Mountain summit.

The summit was socked in, so I couldn't make out the exact conditions from afar, but I did my best to stick to the ridge spine to mitigate avalanche risk.

I avoided stepping under a few cornices, got up to the summit, then quickly retraced my steps (there wasn't a point in sticking around since it was a viewless day and it was a bit windy).

The only deviation I made was that I stuck high up the ridge to further mitigate avalanche concerns.

I was surprised when I got back to the Jolly Mountain/Sasse Mountain trail junction since someone had snowshoed up the ridge using that route (as I discovered last year this path is risky in the winter time; I don't advise it).

On the way down I took the skier's route to cut the distance and avoid the road walk, since it had gotten a bit warmer, and did some minor "telemark snowshoeing" on the way down :).

Avalanche Concerns

Primary avalanche concerns were wind slab/cornices; the qualitative observations I made were reported to NWAC.

Road Conditions

The road to the Sno-Park is a bit icy, but passable by those who understand how to navigate the ice. NF-4315, however, is very much snow covered.

As tempting as it might be, please don't drive up the road: individuals (snowmobile users, skiers, snowshoers) rely on its stability and any disruption makes traveling on it more difficult. It's not a groomed trail like the start of the Sasse Ridge Trail by Ronald, which means WYSIWYG for the conditions.

Furthermore, some road cutting looked like it had taken place (did someone get stuck?), which might have ruined the road bed :(.

Ngie wrote a trip report with all the technical details, mine is merely a narrative, with pictures.

For once we did not dally in the morning. I woke up super groggy and consumed a huge quantity of oat milk coffee beverage, but was still totally out of it until we got on the trail, then I perked up a bit.

Wasted some time at the car trying to strap my snowshoes to my pack because a moment of folly led me to think I should start the hike with micro spikes. 15 minutes later, I was sitting in the middle of the road rectifying my footwear.

This is a forest road snowshoe, mostly. But we cut many switchbacks to “save time” by going straight uphill. Thankfully, Enji was navigating and I was just following in their footsteps. “Oh boy, I feel really good today!” I bragged, while Enji broke trail. Then we got back to the road and I took a turn breaking trail. I forgot why I like hiking in the first place. At some point two snowmobiles passed us, breaking trail for a portion of the road. For once, I was thankful for snowmobiles. (If you end up out here soon, you’re welcome for the 1/16th of the trail that I broke for you, btw.)

When we got up past treeline, I remembered why I like hiking. The views of Salmon La Sac were bangin’ and we got a glimpse of Stuart was well.

There were two other snowshoers at the top of one of our “shortcuts” who seemed incredulous that we were choosing the steep way rather than just walking on the road. I explained that we are masochists. We went a little further, but really didn’t have enough daylight to make it all the way to Jolly. Honestly, the views were so good that I wasn’t even salty. I kept pointlessly saying “this is so pretty!” out loud. Like how do you even respond to that? “Yep.” We ended up getting back to the car juuust after dark. Almost perfect timing.

Thanks Ngie, for taking me out and also for showing me how to use the load lifters on my snowshoes. I needed them!!!

I got out with Birb yesterday to do some fun snowshoe'nanigans.

Starting at the Sno-Park parking lot, we walked up NF-4315 towards Jolly Mountain where we had sweeping views of the Salmon La Sac area and peekaboo views of the Teanaway area.

The route we took in spots was the skiers route up, which cut several switchbacks with the road, reducing the trip length by about a mile or so. I felt comfortable taking Birb up this route because--while it's definitely going over avalanche terrain in areas--the risk was minimized due to the fact that the snowpack is still relatively low (which also made the snowshoe more challenging because we were dodging the gaps between boulders in areas breaking trail).

The conditions were mostly dry snow until it got later in the day and we got higher up; some of the snow was melting off the trees, so I suspect it was in the upper 30s or low 40s.

We turned around at 47.3865, -121.0441 (right before the Sasse Ridge/Jolly Mountain Trail junction) due to heavier than anticipated wet snow conditions breaking trail.

It was a wonderful day to get outside and we were having a blast spending time together and soaking up all the vitamin D we possibly could :).

Red Tape

• This is a popular snowmobile and skier destination in the wintertime: please stay near the trees where possible to avoid disrupting the down track and to avoid potential collisions with skiers/snowmobilers.
• Don't go up the Jolly Mountain summer route unless you have a death wish; I was going straight uphill under a number of cornices in March/April and I don't plan on doing that again.
• The road is avalanche prone once you get near/above treeline, but is less avalanche prone overall than the Jolly Mountain summer trail. Be avalanche aware though before heading out.
• Please exercise caution and pick your route carefully if/when shortcutting up the switchbacks on the forestry road; the road itself isn't avalanche risk free, but is more risk free than walking straight uphill (which I like doing a lot :D..).

We did a loop hike following Yellow Hill Trail to Jolly Mountain, and then down through the West Fork Teanaway River. The entire loop was 23.5 miles with around 7,200 ft elevation gain. We did not see or hear any other human for our entire hike, and did not see any other cars at either trailhead. We did see lots of deer, birds, and chipmunks, and the birds were really loud pretty much everywhere below the ridge. Originally, we wanted to take Sasse Ridge down, but decided against it based on time, trail, and weather conditions.

The Yellow Hill trail is multi-use and full of sharp rocks and dirt that slides around easily when you go up/down hill. The area experienced a recent burn so most of the forest we walked through were burned, with lots of wildflowers and low shrubs coming up. The first half (up to Yellow Hill and a little past) offered very few views, but once you get up on the ridge for the second half, the views opened up. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, and the Snoqualmie area and the Enchantments area were mostly obscured by clouds. I can imagine the views being amazing on a clear day, since we can make out the bottoms of the mountains beneath the clouds. It was also very windy on the ridges. We went on a cloudy day with intermittent rain and some weather coming from the west, but trees on the ridge were flagged or gnarled, so high wind is likely pretty common on the ridge. This part of the trail was snow free.

I'm guessing the Jolly Mountain Fire started right below Jolly Mountain, and you can kind of trace the origin of the fire by looking at the burnt markings on the trees. The summit of Jolly Mountain was in the clouds and extremely windy. Luckily there was a little wind shelter made from rocks at the tops. We hid there, had our lunch, and enjoyed our 360 degree view of whiteness. Coming down from Jolly Mountain, right before the junction with West Fork Teanaway River Trail, there was some deep snow on the trail and no human footprints (only deer prints) to follow. We had GPS so it was fine, but the area did not look like it was frequented very often and we might have had some trouble finding the trail again had we not had GPS.

Originally we wanted to go down Sasse Ridge, but due to the weather and possibility of snow on the ridge, we decided to head back via West Fork Teanaway River Trail. The trail descended quickly at first until it met the river. We saw a family of deer run across the trail, presumably after taking a drink from the river. Parts of the trail were very overgrown and muddy, but the tread was more solid than at Yellow Hill Trail. There were lots of either cow parsnip or giant hogweed growing on the trail that we had to bushwhack through. I'm still not sure what they were, but we tried our best to avoid touching them, and don't seem to have any burns from them yet. Note that the actual trail does not completely follow the same route as the one in Gaia GPS. Where it differs, it's marked with ribbons around trees. Most of the river crossings were doable without removing our shoes but some of the river crossings were impossible to do without taking off our shoes. There were some super delicious tiny wild strawberries at the lower elevations. Thimbleberries looked aaaalmost ready, but not quite.

We walked on the forest road for a couple miles back to the first trailhead, and the quiet forest road with flat tread was a welcomed change from the sharp rocks, dirt, and mud. We saw a couple deer along the road.