I am not a good planner for cabin trips, but I seem to manage to get lucky every once in awhile! This marks two times in the same calendar year where I managed to log onto the reservation website and find a perfect-for-me opening: the first back in January and on a full moon night, and now this awesome Winter Solstice opening, and my first time finding two back-to-back nights open in the reservation system!
I did invite a couple of friends this time, but neither could make it so I decided to go on a solo adventure again, at least human-wise. Jasper pup is always happy to be my buddy for winter trips. The snow pack is still looking incredibly sad. I could see a few tracks from folks who had been out on some rock skis, but I actually ended up just hiking all the way from the trailhead to the cabin in just my boots on the 21st, carrying both microspikes and snowshoes but never needing to stop to put them on. The hike in is majority uphill and the snow was neither deep nor icy. I did end up hiking out in my snowshoes since it snowed a few inches while I was at the cabin, plus I wanted to prevent slipping on the majority downhill hike out.
So it was an easy hike in on the 21st, and I found the stove still had a few embers from the exiting group so it was also super easy to get the fire started back up and make the cabin cozy and warm, plus start melting snow for water.
Kind of important note/moment of disgust: the people before me also hiked with multiple dogs and hadn't bothered to pick up any dog poop around the cabin. Everyone who stays here in the winter needs to melt snow for drinking water, and with the low snow coverage it was extra tricky to find "clean" snow. There's an outhouse for the humans, so that is good. But it's important for the humans with dogs to remember to pick up after their pups. Jasper loves coming to this cabin with me, but honestly I think I would support a no-dog policy considering how most people don't bother to pick up after their pets. I had to hike pretty far from the cabin in order to find a patch of snow that looked undisturbed so I wasn't afraid of discovering any gross surprises as I melted it for my drinking water, and I can tell there are going to be quite a few landmines unearthed as the snow melts in the spring. The nearby spring is currently frozen solid, so snow melt is the only option for water in the winter. (Jasper has a doggie backpack and is responsible for carrying his own "ins & outs," plus he carries out most of my trash for me. I would hope that others who want to come to the cabin with dogs would also consider how they are going to deal with pet waste, or else leave the dogs at home.)
On Monday the day started with a beautiful sunrise, and it definitely proved true that it was an indicator of some incoming interesting weather. I started my day by hiking the Kettle Crest South with a loose goal of maybe making it to the Edds Mountain Trail, or maybe Barnaby Buttes, or maybe even White Mountain. But I didn't want to have to stop to cut any trees along the way, and as I approached the junction for Edds Mountain I found a spot where alder were sideways over the trail. I decided to just turn around an hike back to enjoy lunch inside the cabin and then continue hiking elsewhere, rather than try to get around the alder patch.
After lunch I started up Snow Peak. It's not the thing I'd normally do on a winter trip where I'm solo, but considering the lack of snow I was not concerned about any avy danger. In fact, I decided to turn around a little shy of the summit due to exposed rocks that made travel tricky, plus some incoming weather. The clouds were moving in fast and it was getting increasingly windy, so I retraced my steps back to the cabin and got inside just before it started to snow.
When I wasn't exploring outside, I spent a lot of time reading by the fire and just having a very nice relaxing couple of days! By Tuesday morning the snow had stopped and it had warmed up considerably, although it was still a little below freezing until I got back to Sherman Pass. It was an easy hike out, where someone had actually come in from the SnoPark lot and cut most of the downfall trees, too! There had been perhaps 10-12 trees across the trail on the hike in, some of which were tricky to get around. On the hike out there were still 2 that were easy to get around, and one where I stopped long enough to remove branches so it was an easy step-over on the west side of Sherman Peak. On the lower portion of the trail, someone had removed the rest of the downfall making the hike out every easy.
This is a fantastic overnight trip when it's possible to snag a reservation for Snow Peak Cabin! I also like snow camping on the Columbia Mountain side when I don't get lucky with reservations. The Forest Service recently re-did the entire SnoPark lot, really expanding it and adding even more parking. It's a great easy-access location for year-round hiking.
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