Wenatchee Crest Snowshoe (Blewett Pass) — Monday, Jan. 31, 2022

We decided to snowshoe Wenatchee Crest (road 800) from Blewett (Swauk) Pass today as the snow fall was forecast to be one inch and the day clearing to sun after noon.  That proved to be an optimistic forecast, as about 3 inches of snow fell during our snowshoe, and the sun did not emerge until mid-afternoon.  The trail starts on the west side of Blewett in the smaller sno-park there. We were the only car on arrival. The way follows a plowed road a few hundred yards past a WSDOT shed, and then continues over a large pile of plowed snow to the left. After half a mile there is a marked fork, the right fork descends to the creek valley and the left fork is the correct one, it goes along the ridge crest.  It's posted as being non-motorized by "request" as in "We request that you do not use snowmobiles on this trail"  This must work as there did not appear to be snowmobile traffic.  We hiked for about 3.5 miles along this road, in open forest, sometime off the ridge crest protected from the wind, sometime on the ridge crest in the wind.  The snow was deepening on top of a hard crust, and in windy areas drifts were forming. It was very pretty.  We turned around at the next fork in the road and then stopped for lunch. It kept snowing as we hiked back, finally clearing up in the last mile and revealing some nice views of the near ridges. When we were nearing the sno-park we saw two XC-skiiers and their dog, the only people we saw all day.  All in all a pretty and not difficult snowshoe.