Wait another month before trying to camp at Snowgrass Flats. Unless you love snow haha. This weekend my friend and I went backpacking up to Snowgrass Flats after hearing that the snow had receded. It was gorgeous out, lower 70s, clear skies, and only one other car at the trailhead. We were planning to stay for a couple of nights but ended up doing a day trip with full backpacks haha. I've been on this hike before, so had a decent idea of what the area is like.
The trail was clear up until we crossed Goat Creek, where patchy snow began covering the trail pretty heavily. We were able to (kind of) follow the trail for another quarter-mile+ before it cleared up again for a short time at the hairpin-turn. We hiked up to the next creek (which was roaring) where the trail turns back to the N/NE. Since we were pretty determined to see how much snow there would be, we trekked up further until we reached a meadow. Right after this, the snow became really dense. There is a creek that runs into the meadow, so we decided to follow it up towards Snowgrass Flats. For the entire hike, the trail was not marked at all, and we were looking, but couldn't to find the "Bypass Trail No. 97/Snowgrass Trail No. 96" sign. We followed along the creek on top of the snow, and eventually made it to the lower part of open Flats. We ran into a couple others who had the same plan in mind, so we hiked up together, but ultimately decided to turn around and camp elsewhere for the night. Everything was still covered except for a few tree wells, and it would've been a blast trying to find dry wood for a fire haha. We hiked back down, and ended up camping down by Walupt Lake instead. It was a beautiful hike, but just not yet ready for backpacking unless you've got the gear to be on top of the snow.
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