Snowshoeing on Mt. Adams

Corinne has a plan for us to learn a new sport each season. Last winter we learned snowboarding, and the winter sport on the schedule for '06-'07 is snowshoeing!

As luck would have it, our friend Judith had two pair of snowshoes that she and her husband haven't used in a while, so she loaned them to us as "trial" shoes to see if we liked it before diving in to buy our own. The first time out, we simply walked around our property. I wasn't sure how I would like it, but it's basically like hiking on snow and is quite fun.

For our next outing, we joined up with our friends Jesse and Catherine for a snowshoe adventure they had planned on Mt Adams. They had chosen a Sno-Park on the mountain that was far enough up the mountain that it would hopefully be less populated; but more importantly there were no official snowmobile trails at this particular park, so we hopefully would avoid the disruption (noise, pollution) that they bring.

The weather was almost perfect - it was clear and slightly above freezing, although it would have been nice to have some fresh snow. We spent some time walking along trails, most of which had not yet been disturbed by other explorers since the last snowfall. We brought along our book of Animal Tracks, so whenever we saw some fresh tracks we all stopped to attempt identification. Trained animal trackers we are not; with the help of the book we were able to positively identify hare tracks, but other than that we were guessing.

This is what the Northwest is all about!

- Mike (& Corinne)