First, a hike-u:
A great hike with kids!
There was some snow on Mt. Rose
But it wasn't bad.
My family hiked to the summit of Mt. Rose, kids aged 4 & 8 walking every step of the way, which was a record for both of them in altitude gain. And they both loved it, with enough fun things along the way, such as counting switchbacks, the frequent whump whump sounds of the blue grouse, route finding in the snow, stream crossings, and following the orange diamond trail markers on the way down. We hiked the summit loop clockwise, going up on the steeper route on the left, and down via the longer route on the other side. Both routes had some snow, a bit more on the way up, but it was consolidated and hard and postholing wasn't an issue. On the way up, we could pretty much follow the clear bootprints up, and only had one place we lost the route temporarily and needed to retrace. The way down to Horse Camp on the longer route is well marked with orange diamond markers which were a huge hit with my kids -- you could often see the next 3 or 4. Nevertheless, we somehow managed to veer off to the left too much at one point, losing both the bootprints and trail markers, and started heading down a valley that would have led us into a creek if we hadn't realized and corrected. 8 hours total time, probably around 7 hours hiking time.
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