The road up to Longmire was in good condition. I thought I'd try for Longmire to Paradise today. I have no idea where you go after Narada Falls to get to Paradise and none of the trails are marked yet. So warming station above Narada Falls was the turn around spot.
The trail to Carter Falls: There are seven trees down within the first mile of leaving Longmire. They are high enough you have to throw a leg over. You might even have to sit and swivel over. There are patches of icy snow that were all passable without gear. Prepare for melting snow, in other words, mud. The rocky section to the bridge over the Nisqually was icy and snowy enough I put on my spikes. Falling on those rocks would not be fun. I took my spikes off once on the woodsy trail on the other side of the bridge and rocks. A mile before Carter Falls the trail was really icy, so I put the spikes back on and was super glad for it.
Trail to Narada Falls: There is a narrow trail cut into the snow all the way to the three tricky bridges (tricky once snow and ice are in the picture). The bridges were all passable. A few minutes past the last bridge I started postholing and the tracks thinned out along with the nicely cut path. I had to don my snowshoes. I still sank sometimes a foot in the snow. Cutting a path on tricky terrain in really soft snow kicked my butt. There looked to be a snowshoer who was kind enough to cut through probably yesterday since I didn't pass another soul beyond Carter Falls. There are big step ups and step downs and large steps across on possibly unstable snow you have to contend with. Looking down the path to Reflection Lakes it looked like snowshoers have cut a path. It looked kind of choppy and tiring.
Lower viewpoint of Narada Falls to the warming station: This path is very well-formed with a thin layer of snow on top of ice. Gear is strongly recommended. From the lower viewpoint to the warming station, my snowshoes crunched the whole time. Between the Reflections Lakes sign and the lower viewpoint there were postholes two feet deep.
It was 10.2 miles and 1800 feet elevation. Sounds super doable and yet I am wiped. Happy trekking!
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