Mount Washington — Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012

Snoqualmie Region > North Bend Area

Started up the Mt. Washington trail yesterday with Snowshoes on my pack with the intention of going onto the Great Wall Trail and up to the summit of Change Peak. At the very beginning, there are a number of blow-downs from the ice and wind we had recently, but this is largely at the very bottom of the trail. Once you get going, they're not an issue. Even below the Owl Spot, there was enough snow on the trail that the postholing got bad enough to warrant snowshoes, although many other hikers didn't have them. I put them on and headed up. At the junction to the Great Wall trail, there were no tracks headed that way. I took a few steps in my snowshoes in that direction, and postholed all the way in. There is an icy crust on top of what appears to be powder snow that made me reconsider. I continued up the Mt. Washington trail to about 3500 feet where I acknowledged my exhaustion and turned around. As I say, there were a number of others on the trail following the bootpath up toward the top, postholing often. In short, bring snowshoes!