20 November 2010 - 1st Storm?

Friday I got a pretty good look at the Cascades flying over to Eastern Washington and back for a flight test. It looks like there's plenty of snow at the higher elevations, and on the north slopes it goes all the way down to the foothills. Today was spent digging winter clothes out of the garage, waxing the skis and buying a sno-park pass on-line. First ski trip tomorrow morning! (Don't worry, we'll bring snowshoes in case the conditions don't live up to the fantasy.)

8 November 2010 - Rock Mountain Snowshoe Trip

Cool weather and precipitation late in the week means snow in the mountains for the weekend!

The forecast for Sunday was questionable, but we figured if we went high enough we’d be in snow instead of rain, so Octo and I grabbed our snow shoes and rain gear and headed for Rock Mountain up on Nason Ridge. Snow we found - not enough to ski on just yet - but enough to put the snowshoes to good use. The trail was white by 5000’ and at 6000’ we were in deep enough to strap on our lighting ascents and we used them from there all the way to the summit.

Sure we had rain and fog and driving snow, but only enough to ease us into winter recreation mode. The precip tapered off in the afternoon and the wind blew in from Eastern Washington as we were hiking out, so we were dried out by the time we got back to the car. Sure glad we didn't talk ourselves out of a good trip just because of lousy forecast.

A few pics just to document the occasion here…