Three of us enjoyed a pleasant and warm snowshoe hike on the blue diamond route to Nordic Pass on Saturday. Conditions were almost ideal for snowshoes. Testing with bare boots resulting in foot-deep post holes. As usual, the ""crux"" of this hike is crossing the creek a few yards from the trail head, but we found a spot requiring just a few steps kicked into the steep snow banks. The ""snow circle"" reported at http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19249 is still there. Have some British circle maker friends been visiting?
It's nice to have this public trail available at the pass, but views are limited most of the time. The section from Frog Lakes to Nordic Pass was bordering on boring, with the game of ""follow the blue diamonds"" adding a little interest.
Despite the somewhat bleak weather forecast, we had sun almost our entire hike. We started at about 9 and reached Nordic Pass in 2 1/2 hours. The return trip took only 1 1/2 hours and a light rain started to fall as we reached our car at the Gold Creek snow park at 1:30. Driving home we encountered torrential downpours near North Bend -- it's a good thing we started early!
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