We wanted to go to Mount Catherine but without a road snowshoe (as you would from Hyak) however this trip didn't work out as planned.
We parked at the Silver chairlift area, not as far east as Hyak. We didn't know there was a trail from the ski area leading away from it, so we made our own way along the east side of the creek draining Hyak Lake until we ended up on snowshoe trail. There are a lot of snowshoe trails in this area, can be very confusing... we contributed by breaking our own trail in some areas. Ended up on the main path of sorts, which was marked with "Snowshoe trail" signs on some trees. This track lead to Hyak Lake and here the snowshoe trail ended. We broke trail through very deep thick snow (thigh deep in snowshoes!) away from the lake and ended up very close to a major intersection of the XC ski area from Hyak/Mt Catherine loop. We were tired from the thick trail breaking and no evidence of other snowshoers taking a more direct route to the Nordic Pass/Mt Catherine area, so we stayed on the XC ski route/road heading left/downhill, then right around Ollalie Mountain. Don't tromp on the groomed ski tracks! We made our own way along the PCT route through Ollalie Meadows, where our party decided we'd had enough for that day after 5.5 miles and nearly 2000 gain of snowshoeing. One of our party investigated and found there was a beaten snowshoe track leading up the Mt Catherine summer trail. Sigh. Next time!
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