Heather - Maple Pass Loop — Thursday, May. 29, 2025

Bottom line: pretty treacherous conditions right now, especially without the right experience or gear. Trail is very difficult to find in the snow, although we added 8 sets of tracks to our guesstimation of where to go, and near our turnaround did find the obvious dirt trail again.

My brother and his family are visiting, and his daughter selected this hike, not anticipating how much snow there might be. I should have vetoed the hike much earlier given their lack of experience in the area and snow in particular (and their lack of appropriate gear). Anyway, we braved it up clockwise (the trailhead to go counterclockwise seems to be blocked by a tree down or is just completely hidden), and made it almost all the way to Maple Pass, but a couple of other hikers that had passed us ended up turning around saying the snow ahead was just too deep to continue. I took that opportunity to turn our group around for a careful descent back to the car, and thankfully we made it back without any injuries!

That aside, however, the views were spectacular, and I fully intend to return later in the summer for the full loop. My husky mix adored the entire hike with all the snow to barrel through.

Parking lot is snowed in at the moment - people are parking along the highway where there’s a nice ample shoulder.