Headed up to do Mt. Catherine this morning. The road becomes impassable due to snow about a quarter mile before the trailhead, so that's convenient. You have to know exactly where the trailhead is because the sign is a bit off the main road, and the trail is impossible to see because it is completely snow covered at the start. I used the free Android app OsmAnd+ with offline topographic maps to navigate the trail the whole time. This was required both at the start and throughout the hike because of all the snow.
The snow was soft, but not too soft. We had snowshoes on our packs but never put them on. Just boots and gaiters were ideal basically the whole time. There are a few angled snowfield crossings that we thought might be hard, but just kicking in little footholds was really easy, making everything pretty passable.
It wasn't actually raining, but as we got higher up, there was a constant snow-melt "rain" from the sun hitting the snow at the tops of the trees. Therefore it was a bit wetter than expected!
It was a really beautiful hike overall, with running water on the trail at the bottom, then the raining snow-melt, then light beautiful snow at the top, with great views from the summit.
There were numerous other vehicles parked on the road, but we were the only ones on the Mt. Catherine trail all the way up and back down.
Overall, an excellent spring hike!
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