I took a friend who has only snowshoed a few times to Nordic Pass. I was under the mistaken impression we might get open views at our destination, but I should have done better research because the pass is totally forested. Still, the scenery along the way was really lovely and it was a great place for my friend to get her feet wet (figuratively). You could take this trail while it's dumping snow and not worry you're missing out on distant views or about avalanche danger.
We parked in the Silver Fir parking lot and strapped on our snowshoes immediately. The Nordic Pass trail was well-traveled and easy to follow until Hyak Lake. From there, the trail bypasses the lake clockwise. We went counterclockwise and soon found ourselves at Grand Central. We headed down along the side of a groomed trail in the direction of Rockdale Lake. The groomed path circles the lake but does not actually glimpse it. The easiest way to reach the lake is to find an obvious tunnel between the trees on the far side of the lake. We discovered this access point while searching for a way out after crashing between some denser trees on our way in.
We traveled cross-country over and around Point 3800 to rejoin the Blue Diamond-marked Nordic Pass trail and followed that to the end. We planned to follow the Blue Diamonds all the way back on our return trip, but we lost them just past the spot where we had originally found them (after traveling cross country from Rockdale Lake), so we followed our own tracks home instead. When we hit NF-110, we didn't go back (left) toward Grand Central. Instead, we took a right onto NF-110 and then rejoined the Nordic Pass trail.
After we escaped the gravitational pull of the parking lot, we saw maybe three other people all day. We broke trail through fresh snow beginning shortly after we left Rockdale Lake. All that pow meant we had a lot of woodland critter tracks to keep us company, including two areas absolutely packed with owl prints.
Comments