We decided to take my jeep on his first car camping trip on Friday night. We hauled our way through all of the after work traffic and finally arrived to Heather Meadows parking area around 7:30 pm, taking us about 4 hours of driving.
Highway 542 was bare and dry. 4WD was not needed yesterday, which was a pleasant surprise. The only slick area is in the parking lot next to the vault toilets. The toilets were stocked with TP as of this morning.
Wow, wow, wow, the stars were popping out last night! All 7 planets were visible and we could even faintly see the northern lights! It was pretty windy and cold last night, but we stay out until almost midnight staring up.
As for the hike, we checked NWAC last night and noticed that the avy risk today was "considerable" so we told ourselves we would go as far as we felt was safe. We woke up around 4:45 to change and pack our bags and were on the trail by 5:20 with our headlamps. By that point, you could faintly see the first light. We brought and attached snowshoes to our packs, but just wore our spikes instead. Most of the trail was iced over that early in the morning, but we still occasionally post holed. We called it quit right before ascending the ridge line to Artist Point because of the avy risk today. We saw quite a few roller balls along the hillside there and played it safe. Still a beautiful sunrise, but really wished we could've watched Shukshan and Komo Kulshan turn pink! Next time. We were the only ones on the trail this morning, which has never happened to us on such a beautiful sunny Saturday morning. To each their own regarding avy safety. I'm sure most groups we saw going up after us made it safely to the summit.
On the hike down, the snow was significantly softer, and post holing was a bit more common. We saw quite a few other groups coming up as we came down in our spikes.
We will definitely be back later this winter/spring to car camp again and catch the sunrise from the true summit on a day where the avy risk is expected to be a bit safer.
If car camping, don't forget to purchase a reservation before you go. Park staff was monitoring the lot past 10 PM last night and handing out passes for those who did purchase a reservation.
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