This is a story of how one should do some homework before heading out to the trail.
After earlier fiasco with Sage Hill trail, I did a quick search for nearby hikes and found this trail appealing. "Wenatchee is past mountains, gonna be a nice forest stroll, nothing could go wrong", - said I to myself and started driving to the trailhead. Then I saw a chain-up area. Next I saw signs for a ski resort. "Oh", - said I to myself and realized my trail was in fact in the heart of mountains. But I didn't drive all the way from Everett to leave without a hike, did I?
Parking lot at the Mission Ridge Resort, albeit large, was very busy today. I was lucky to get a spot close to actual trailhead, which is just before the parking starts.
The entire trail - well, the entire area for miles around - is covered with a few feet of snow. In fact, it's a snowshoe trail now. You may easily guess I didn't have any snowshoes, but I decided to give it a try in my hiking boots. Snow within the trail turned out to be compact enough to keep me on the surface. So I went ahead.
First mile was really strenuous. Luckily I didn't posthole much, maybe just half a dozen times. Then trail flattened a bit and became much easier. After about an hour of climbing I arrived at the opening that was identified as Clara Lake using a map - the lake itself was obviously invisible being buried under the snow. From there, snow became pretty loose, and I started postholing every other step. After being sucked all the way to my waist into snow couple times, I turned around. It seemed to me many people, even wearing snowshoes, turned around at that point too. Hike down was much more enjoyable and took me just 30 mins.
Despite difficulties, it was a majestic hike. Forest was so beautiful with all those heavy snow caps. Bring your gear and enjoy.
There is one unsigned junction about 0.4 - 0.5 mi into the trail. Trail to the right follows actual summertime trail. Trail to the left is a wintertime shortcut, which is steep at places, and snow there is not that hard.
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