Went up on a Monday morning and got to the trailhead at about 9:30am. The roads were clear and easy to navigate. I was able to park about 5 cars from the trailhead, but the bathrooms hadn't been serviced yet after the weekend and were pretty gross.
I opted to just toss on my microspikes as the trail was well trod and packed down. We headed up to the picnic area at Gold Creek Pond and chuckled to see the snow at the top of the tables. We walked out onto the frozen pond and crossed the pond on the ice and snow to the little peninsula at the north end without issue. The east side of the pond is still open water due to the inflow from the creeks in that area.
We hopped back up onto the road and continued north through the private property. We stopped for lunch at the little pond and kiosk at the north end of the private property. After lunch we headed up the trail and the path got narrow and about 15 inches deep and just wide enough for a pair of snowshoes. The fresh snow was 3-4 inches deep, but it was pretty hard packed. I had thrown on my snowshoes after lunch. We made it as far north as the big open avalanche chute before turning around. The risk of avalanche was low today and there wasn't a lot of snow on the slope, but my kids were getting tired. We stopped and threw snowballs into the creek on the way back and just stayed on the road back to the car.
It was a pretty day and fun to be out on the trails even if the need for snowshoes was questionable at best.
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