Today promised to be the best weather day and although a little delayed it lived up to its promise!
We arrived at the pullout near Newport Creek before FR 116 around 8:20am to already find 8 cars or so. Everyone else knew it was the day to get out! Having heard from someone that the parking on FR 116 below the gate was treacherous even for AWD, we opted to just park here and walk a little on the road. The morning was still hazy but we had high hopes for views at the top.
Having also read the previous trip report and that the trail was compact snow, we left our snowshoes and just took spikes. My friend wore hers up but I didn't need them until the trip down. It turned out to be a good choice as snowshoes were not needed although some who had brought theirs along used them near the summit.
The trail was easy to follow for the most part but you can tell there have been new folks on the trail who have started several spur trails not keeping on the ridge once past the viewpoint before the final push to the Sasse junction. If not paying attention it was easy to miss and have to cut up later. Not a biggie, they all seem to end up at the top eventually.
At this point the haze had started to clear and by the time we reached the summit it was blue skies above and low lying clouds below. We joined a few at the summit and it was a steady stream of hikers coming up while we basked in the sun.
Our trip down was uneventful, many more sunseekers passing us as they headed up. By the time we were halfway back down we were once again in the clouds.
At the gate and parking on FR 116 there were still a few people heading up at 2pm and someone was asking for help to push her car (a Subaru) because she had slid into the truck in front of her while trying to get out of a parallel parking job. I can't say too much about it, I even needed a little push from my spot as I had pulled in just a bit too much into the snow along 203. A shout out to the two who helped me, it beat having to put my traction devices on the front tires!
For more pictures and some of my previous trips here with more details, see link below.
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