A Great Change Of Plans

As we all know, you can't trust the weatherman so I try not to look before one of our outdoor trips. Our rule is that no matter what it looks like at home you go to the trailhead anyway. It almost always works out in your favor. Raining at home, but clear or at least dry at the trailhead.

Yesterday was the opposite. The weather was supposed to be clear, but you can't trust them. We were surprised to find that it was as nice as predicted. So nice in fact that we changed trails on the way to a harder and longer trail with a bigger photo op payoff - SunTop.

We weren't disappointed. There was one snowshoer who hit the trail just ahead of us and that was it. The trail started crunchy and by the two mile point we were breaking trail in 4-8 inches of snow. We were using the guy aheads' tracks, but creating a better - wider trail as we went.

I had thought that it was 7.9 miles round trip to the point where you head to the lookout, but I was off by a mile so it was 8.9 to there and another mile round trip to the lookout area. The trail was lost in the snow so we headed up until we got our view. What a view it was!

Our group of 5 had some lunch and headed down since most of us had early evening plans - 5 pm - in Tacoma.





We were back in the car and on our way by 2:20 - less than 6 hours from when we originally hit the trail. Success! We had a newcomer, Xavier, who survived to hike another day. We hope he joins us for many more adventures!

Here are some more pictures.

More soon....