01/14 - Lake Crescent and the Spruce Railroad Trail

Once again, we were out trying to snowshoe. This time we checked out the Spruce Railroad Trail, which had a thin layer of snow and ice. The spooky maple trees at the start of the trail looked great with their snowy trimmings. There were a few logs down, but the trail was pretty easy going all told. The lake itself was beautiful.

01/14 - Christmas Tree Cookies

We have finally taken down our cookie tree. Here are some of the surviving cookies. In general, if a cookie tree cookie is going to be eaten, it is usually eaten within the first 15 minutes, shortly after it is dried. These cookies are very pretty, and are most likely edible, but we've had enough treats for the season. They are off to Cookie Valhalla, that Great Oven in the Sky.

01/13 - Lake Angeles Trail Report

We tried doing a little snowshoeing along the Lake Angeles Trail, but we were thwarted by fallen trees. We had to climb over a few trees to get to the first crossing. The little foot bridge was out, crushed by a couple of fallen logs. Luckily, the river is easy to ford here, and there were lots of broken logs and bits of the bridge to walk on, so we made our across the stream. Then we started to climb, and soon ran into another fallen tree. Then there was a clear patch, then another fallen tree, then clear, then tree, and so on.

It is rather awkward clambering over fallen trees of varying sizes in snowshoes. It isn't getting one's foot up that is the problem, but rather getting it down. The snowshoe tries to land toe first. After a few more trees, we gave up.

The Heather Park Trail was in better shape, but we soon came to a brook running down the middle of the trail. Rather than get out feet wet, we turned around here.

We clambered around a bit more, finding the little picnic area and foot bridge on the fire road that starts at the parking lot just after the park gate station. We had never explored there before, so we judged our venture a success.