Artist Point Snowshoe — Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

This was my first time doing the Artist Point snowshoe. I arrived on Tuesday afternoon and just wanted to get familiar with the area before I did the actual snowshoe on Wednesday morning. There's no snow driving up the mountain until the point of the parking lot and then there appears to be tons of it. The afternoon I was familiarizing myself with the area, the snow was giving way and snow shoes were the best option. That afternoon I followed all the trails that they are using the machines to groom, I ended up at the top of some ski runs. On Wednesday morning, I took off at 6:30 in the morning and the surface was firm enough I could get away with using micro spikes. I followed the groomed trail and used my Gaia to help me go in the right direction for Artist Point. There are no signs and it's kind of every man for himself at this point finding your best route. I was lucky that morning was broken clouds and I got some beautiful views. I hung out for an hour and by the time I was descending, the surface was getting soft enough that even though I stayed in my micro spikes, they were working against me and I really should've switched to my snow shoes. Despite all of our recent warm weather, it looks like there will be enough snow to do this route for several more weeks.