3/24, Saturday, partly cloudy -> rain/snow. 6 of us and a dog drove met at Gateway at 7:30am, and drove to Trillium Lake Sno-Par for Trillium Lake. Sun shone through clouds in, and heavy new snow on green trees. Very pretty. Last week has been cold and wet.
Obnly 7-8 cars (including ours) in the big parking lot. The wide snow trail starts behind the closed gate, yes, it starts on the road. At the junction, we turn left for a clock-wise loop, 3 on snowshoes and 3 on cross-country skis. Fluffy snow. It's easy to slow down a bit, just walk in the new snow. No wind, I even worked up some sweat. I took all the outer layers off. Snow cascaded off top branches, sparkling in the sun.
Mt Hood looked regal from here. Even though it was only 10:20, we decided to have our lunch break here. I like this "PEED" sign, the rest of the "SPEED LIMIT" letters were buried in the snow. The lake looks pristine, non one walked into the lake much. Last 2 weeks were too warm, probably not safe. You can walk around the lake. But we followed the main route, and soon left the view of the lake, as well as Hood.
The clouds got thicker, and the temperature dropped. I put on a fleece. Mostly we were on some road (of course the road was under the snow) with limited view, so no much snow that fell from the tree would land on us. At Summit Prairie, view expands. The "Oregon Trail" sign says An original gathering place for Native American Indians, in 1866 squatter Perry Vickers built the first log cabin here which became another tollgate. By 1905 a large wooden structure known as Summit House, a cedar shake tipi, a barn and corral occupied this clearing. Soon, we were back at the junction, and a lot more people. It started to snow lightly. But much less snow on the trees, not as pretty.Overall, maybe 4.5 miles, ~500'. Back in town ~2pm. I got dropped off at home, nice. Rained the rest of the day.
