I headed up the Dosewallips River Trail on Saturday, expecting to do a nice long trail run. I had always been curious about the Lake Constance trail, but was only expecting to learn a bit more about the entry route in order to prepare for a future trip to the lake, or hopefully someday, the Mt. Constance summit.
I had downloaded the Gaia area map ahead of time, as there was no cell coverage in the area. I had also explored a few NOAA snow models, and was expecting to see snow pretty low. I was shocked within the first 2-3 miles of the run to find beautiful, warm, summer-esque weather and I didn't observe much snow when I peered high up to the south ridge.
When I reached the turn off for the Lake Constance trail (very well marked by a sign just short of 5 miles in), I couldn't help but turn uphill and scope out the trail I had long dreamed of. As expected, it was very steep and quite challenging to follow. I immediately found myself off track, too far left of the trail, and under a steep cliff band. Checking my Gaia app, I realized I had strayed too far, downclimbed, and found the main trail.
I kept my eyes focused on Gaia for the first ~300 feet or so, but after that, I found the trail pretty easy to follow (especially coming off a Whitehorse climb two weeks prior). I didn't find any snow until a dusting at about ~2700 feet. As I progressed to the open-ish basin around ~3000 feet, the snow became much deeper and I found myself post-holing to mid thigh. Since I only came prepared with microspikes and shorts, I figured this was a good place to turn around. I did see at this point snowshoe tracks beginning, but couldn't know how far that person made it.
Overall, the Constance river area was incredibly lush and at times, eerily silent, with enormous house-sized boulders dotting the landscape. I wished I could have been there to see them fall (from a safe distance of course).
All in all, a super hike up, and I'll be excited to come back for more once the sun has done a bit more work on the snow.
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