2002-02-15 Snowshoeing

On February 15th, Troop 266 headed for Snoqualmie Pass. Our troop has done one other snow shoeing campout, which took place several years ago. This trip we planed for more fun. We started on the trail at 9pm Friday after we spent quite a while learning how to put on snowshoes. We planed on hiking all the way to Snow Lake and camping there. Although, our scouts were tired and wet we decided to set up camp after 45 minutes of hiking. Even though I had a tent, I decided to sleep in the snow cave I was making. This was the softest snow I've been able to cave in ever. Every year at White Pass, the snow was soft with many layers of ice between, but this was perfect. I woke up last only because I stayed up digging and was sick. The cave was fairly warm but my feet froze because my feet weren't on my pad. I was just to lazy to move my pad down further. We started hiking toward Snow Lake, but a few scouts didn't have much energy to keep going. And the fact that the people we passed that were going back to camp said the lake was several hours away. I myself wasn't sure how far away it was but I just wanted to keep going and have fun. Twenty minutes later, half the troop gave up and went back to camp. Just Bro. White, Kevin, Nick, Michael, and I, were still headed to the lake. This is when it started to get very steep. Probably the steepest climb I have ever done before. My feet slipped a few times an I was scared for my life. This is one hike and ice axe would've been very helpful. After we made it over the steep part, we were able to finally see the lake. It was fun running through all the powder and jumping off little cliffs. The lake was completely frozen over and covered in snow. We took a few pictures and then headed back. Coming down the steep part was scary but fun. Once we made it back to camp we ate lunch then packed our belongings. At 4pm, we left for the cars. We had actually camped very close to another trail that headed toward the area we had come from, but we weren't sure if it would lead us back to our cars. We hiked for about 15 minutes down this trail and we ended up in the highest parking lot, about 5 minutes of walking down the road took us to our lot. McDonalds was delicious. Tonight I will appreciate my warm soft bed much more than I have lately.