Mount Catherine — Saturday, May. 17, 2025

The road has a few patches of snow on the switchbacks and then suddenly transforms to all snow less than a quarter mile from the trailhead. I turned back and packed a bit before then in a wide spot of the road. 

The trail start signage is buried in snow so first I passed it, realizing my mistake when I reached the snowy PCT. After backtracking I realized there was no sign and no footprints in the snow. I followed the wide corridor between the trees for a short distance before reaching bare trail for a couple switchbacks. There are a couple downed trees to navigate. Snow starts to creep back in and soon the trail is full snow. 

I was in trail runners/microspikes and poles which was fine for most of the way. The snow is consolidated and I didn't posthole much. The sloped snow over the trail require me kicking steps into the snow. When I reached the final traverse to the summit block I found very deep, sloped fairly firm snow. With boots and an axe perhaps but not in my trail runners. It also started to rain enough that I felt even better about my decision to bail.