Apparently this report never posted, which is a bummer, but, maybe it can be used as a reference for next year.
Going off of photos and memory, started the long gravel road trail at 10am, there was one other car in the lot at this time, which left me semi hopeful this hike was still possible.
Through a good half of the hike there was absolutely no snow, we were making incredible time, and I was really feeling like the adventure dog and I could hit the basin in a decent time. Well, once the trees kinda cleared, everything changed. The trail became incredibly difficult to navigate, and I started following the footprints of what I assumed to be the hiker from the other car in the lot.
This trail led me to a solid 8 foot wide stream with a few rocks with dry peaks as stepping stones, the stream was a good knee deep in areas. Across the stream was a small ledge that you had to climb up over and was basically 90 degrees.
I assessed the situation, and was ready to call it a day, I figured, eh ill see if I can get Miss Remi to climb the rock wall, which she really couldn't. I had to position myself on the dry rocks and push her up, in hindsight this was just dumb and we should have just turned around. But we had only been hiking for maybe 2 hours, so I was still fresh.
As we continued on following the boot path, it started to become insanely snow filled, we were rounding a corner, and ran into the hiker id been following.
We chatted for a bit, she said after about 100 yards it's not possible, I told her the dog just loves running in the snow, so if that's what we do and turn around im happy
And boy was she not kidding. After about 100 yards we found a clearing, and it was absolutely not safe to go any further, it went from knee deep, to easily over the waist in a blink of an eye.
We had some lunch at the clearing then headed down. Getting Miss Remi down from the ledge I discussed earlier was an ENTIRELY different challenge and I ended up having to carry her down and through the stream soaking myself up to my knees.
I had taken my boots off before, and packed extra socks, but hiking down with soaked pants was not totally ideal.
Id say November is an absolute roll of the dice to do this one, if I attempt it again, September will probably be the latest ill attempt. I did it July YEARS ago and that was perfect.
We got down unscathed but semi defeated, spent some time at the river and headed back home.
I hope by now no one has attempted this in December or January, but, yah, just don't lol.
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