Went out for a Christmas eve backpack to camp out on the East fork of the Foss river. The road up is passable -- large potholes can be dodged, and while there's a large tree down, it only covers half the road; lots of people have made it around it. For now, at least, the road had no snow until the Necklace Valley trailhead, which had a light dusting.
I carried snowshoes but never took them off my back. The trail was muddy, and the various creek crossings were swollen enough that I was grateful for poles. A few downed trees to duck under or hop over. Perhaps three miles in, the snow starts to kick in on the trail; the trail was still clearly marked and easy to follow, even in the meadows.
Lovely views of the river and ponds; and amazing ice formations dripping off downed trees.
The meadow areas are heavily overgrown. What are damp brush in the fall and summer are now frozen whips, snow-covered branches, so that pushing past them gets you both dumped with snow and tangled in their frozen slush. A few times a bootpath tries to go around them; other times, you just duck under. Dayhikers seemed fine with that; with a backpack and strapped-on snowshoes, it was a little more difficult.
Camped about five miles in; the next morning, climbed up across the stream crossing to take a look at the climb up to the lakes. With avalanche danger fairly high from the recent snows, I decided today wasn't the day for that further adventure.
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