Barlow pass is one of the main passes through the Cascade mountains used by settlers coming over on the Oregon Trail. Parts of the original trail are preserved and you could see them if they were covered in 10 feet of snow and 2 feet of teenagers that died of dysentery. This pass goes clockwise around Mount Hood from Hood River and so avoids the worst sections of the Columbia Gorge and the Columbia River which in those days was full of trecherous rapids and salmon. Why they didn't just take I84 is unknown to historians (at least I could find no reference).
With the Barlow Pass, you get fewer salmon, but you do have to deal with the trees and the cold. Probably limited them to non-winter travel. Still, you have little marked sites like "Pioneer Womans Grave" as actual tourist destination spots. Today we are parking our snow ready Subaru Forestor (with AWD and Snow Tires. We have the chains but didn't need them today) in the plowed snow-park at Barlow Trailhead. You need to have a $5 Snowpark pass to use the lot. It is plowed but the road is still packed ice, so be careful.
We timed it well on this expediction. I picked a day that was 2 days after a good snow dump on the mountain (got a foot on monday night). Today was Wednesday and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. So Blue and Sunny!! And since it was a day or 2 after the storm, the main roads were all well plowed.
The temperature was just at freezing when we got out of the car. The parking lot this time of year is 5 or 6 feet below the snow level that we are going to be snow shoeing on. Gives you a good idea of the general depth of snow. We walk down to a place that people have sort of smashed some steps into and climb up onto the surface. We are going to be hiking a section of the Pacific Crest Trail. We are going South toward Frog Lake SnowPark but only plan to go as far as Twin Lakes. We did some of this terrain a few weeks ago walking North from Frog Lake TH.
The PCT is marked for winter travel with a few PCT logos and a lot of blue diamonds nailed to trees at winter snow head level (call it 14 feet or so). I was thinking that we would have to be following these diamonds except that someone (perhaps 2 to 4 people) were out ahead of us and had made initial tracks through the snow. This was NOT a day that we could have skipped the snowshoes and gone on using our ice cleats. Even in the shoes we had (our new shorty MSR) we were sinking into the slightly trod track more than normal. Not a big deal but you can really tell the little extra effort that is needed to walk a trek that isn't hard packed. You have that little sinking that happens.
The Sun was shining and everywhere except the trail was pristine untrammeled snow. Ice sparkles and snow flocked trees abound. The snow is blown and stacked by nature so there are mounds and features everywhere. There were also places along the trail where you could see holes in the snow. Places where there was some natural hole that had be topped somehow by the snow. A great place to fall into if you were just wandering around off trail through the woods. I usually go stomping off through the woods at some point, just for fun, but didn't feel the need today.
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| Why are the trees so small in girth. I suspect because of the short season and that the big boys get knocked down. |
There are a number of side trails off of the PCT going up from Barlow Pass. The first one was a right turn onto what we thought from our map was a trail up the ridge called Ghost Ridge Trail. Closer inspection of the map, however, revealed that this was really just some dotted border (county?) that happened to go right down the center of Ghost Ridge. Half the people ahead of us either thought this was a real trail or just wanted to go exploring because their tracks left the trail and headed up the ridge following that dotted line. I know this because I could see where we were and where the dotted line was using my new whiz-bang Gaia mapping Ap. I will review that after a few more hikes.
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| This the route map from Gaia |
We are still on the trail, but now the trail is Half as trampled as it had been, and the walking gets slightly but noticeably harder. So interesting. Another quarter mile and we come the Palmateer trail. It goes off to the left to some view point and eventually loops around to Frog Lake. The remainder of the people that were in front of us turned down this trail. This leaves us with the choice of either following them (not our plan) or going down the currently untrammeled PCT.
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| Untrammeled (not trampled?) |
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| Trampled By One. |
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| Trampled By Many |
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| The First Trampler. Note that snowshoes are invisible |
The PCT is going downhill at this point, which means we were not as tired as we had been going UP. We decided it would be fun to trail blaze for a while. We are not going in a completely new area. People have been going down this trail all winter, so there is a definite visible dent in the snow running along ahead of us as well as the occassoinal blue diamond. Paige leads the way and we immediately find out what it means to be the leader going through virgin deep snow. It is hard. You sink down into the snow and then have to push harder to bring your feet up plus a few inches of snow covers you snowshoe and you have to lift this weight out. That show is all powder and spills of as you make your step just to be refilled on the next step. I am the second person through and it is even harder back there. I didn't get to appreciate how much EASIER it was in the number slot until Paige needed a break and let me take the lead. Wow. Big difference.
I found that the secret was to slow down and take smaller steps and just sort of keep lugging ahead. The little trail sign on a tree at the turn to Palmateer said that it was quarter of a mile to the intersection with Twin Lake trail. That was one of the longest quarter miles of my life. Hell, that is less that once around the block. Why was it taking so damn long?
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| mouse? |
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| Rabbit? |
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| Velociraptor? |
However, since I am going slow and breathing hard and taking a lot of little rest stops, this is a a good time to look around and see all of the stuff going on in the snow. Lots of critter tracks. I think I see mouse and rabbit. And the ones that end right at a tree are probably squirrel. Didn't see any actual animals, but they must have been out and about in the last day since the storm.
At the trail intersection Paige and I have a discussion. She wants to continue on at least until we have been hiking for 2 hours. She wants a 4 hour workout. I have been thinking how hard I am working breaking trail and the fact that going back (though stomped by 2 people) is going to be uphill. But it is only a mile and a half to Twin Lake and it sure would be great to be able to get out of the trees and sit in the sun for our lunch. OK. Paige takes over trail breaking and down Twin Lakes Trail we go. After about 100 yards she remembers how hard trail breaking is and reconsiders my comments about the going back uphill. We decide that I will trail break until I need a rest or until we find some sunny break in the trees for lunch and then we will call it halfway.
I am now reminded of my droll helpfullness. When out hiking in the summer in heavily touristed parts I am often stopped by people and asked for directions or advice. Not sure if I looked experienced or perhaps I dress like a Ranger. Perhaps I am the only person going slow enough that they could catch me and ask a question. Anyway, the most common question I get is "How much further is it?". I usually tell them that the trail goes on for miles and miles but the important thing to remember is that they know they are halfway when they turn around and head back toward their car. I am not (completely) making fun, either. It is something I think about. Been walking for 2 hours? You got another 2 hours in you? When is sundown? Do I have enough water? What time does the hot tub at the gym close? Important questions.
But I digress.
I made it a few more hundred yards and then ran into a stretch of trail that was flat and exposed to the sky, that is, no trees crowded overhead. All of a sudden the snow was much deeper and thus much harder to snowshoe through. I made it like 50 feet and then just said screw it and asked if we could stop. We were 5 minutes short of our 2 hour stop and about a mile from Upper Twin Lake. This means we had come maybe 2.3 miles in 2 hours. Holy cow that is slow. How can I be so tired for going so slow?
We tromped over to a semi-sunny spot and made a sitting spot by stomping all over in a circle. Then I put down my red tarp and we sat on our snow mats, ate lunch, and discussed our slowness.
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| our lunch spot |
There is a hierarchy of stressors that build up to wear one out. There are the usual things, like are you going up hill? And then there are the Snow related things. These are mainly: How many people have trompled down the trail before you? if your are the first person in the virgin snow, that is pretty hard. If you are second, that is easier but still hard. You can even tell the difference in difficulty for 3,4 and perhaps 5. Once you get up to around 8 or 10, things are properly squashed and the only difficulty is that you are walking in Snoeshoes. OK, so the last thing is that you have snowshoes on and what type are you wearing. The short light MSR shoes, like Paige and I are now using? Those are least stressing of all snow shoes on packed or paritally packed sonw. On Virgin deep snow, I think we may have been better of with larger shoes with more floatation. (yes, the size of the shoe is refered to as flotation). The MSR Evo's that we have are short (especially in the back) but you can get 5 or 6 inch extenders that sort of clip on. Those may have come in handy when we were trail breaking.
So there you have it. We ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and thought about going back up the hill (as an aside, one of the great things about going on a hard hike is that you get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich). We are going to be going 1) Uphill and 2) on a trail that has been walked by persons (us). That is going to be.... medium hard? Also we have to go back over the longest quarter mile in the universe. Will it be shorter uphill but semi-tramped?
Lets go (we are getting chilly).
We have 2 miles and change to go. The first mile was uphill. It was somewhat of a killer. We were going really slowly and stopping a lot to "admire the view". The twice trampled trail was still pretty soggy and rough to slog through, though much easier than the virgin snow (though that was downhill. See how these thiings intermix?).
After than long (fucking) quarter mile, we got back to the intersection with the Palmateer trail. Here we hit the part where other people had already walked and things started to get easier. This trail was 4-6 smashed already. Though we were still going up. Another quarter of a mile and we hit where the people had vered off to go up to Ghost Ridge. Now we were on a 10 to 12 smashed trail. AND it was going down hill. It was like a highway to heaven. It was SO EASY. We were just flying down that last mile to the car.
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