Twisp of Fate

I was able to go on a Tuesday outing today, for the first time in several weeks.  It has turned warmish and melty over here so the question was where to find snow that wasn’t total mush, and could we avoid being rained on?

We went up the West Chewuch Rd out of Winthrop to the Sno-Park lot at the end of plowing, about 10 miles from town.  We were a small group today, only five, with 3 of us on cross-country skis and 2 on snowshoes.  This is a mixed use snowmobile and foot-powered sports trail, but it was well packed down and there was not a snowmobile in sight.  The skiing was remarkably good, actually – not icy, not too soft, not very fast but that was OK.  We went in about 2.5 miles to the Falls Creek Falls campground.  I love that name – the creek that comes down there is called Falls Creek, because there is a waterfall just a few hundred feet above the road, which is so aptly named “Falls Creek Falls.”

Along the way, we noticed there were cougar tracks going both up and down the road.  We had Otis along, who is Barb’s daughter’s dog (part Boxer and part Golden Retriever), so we had to make sure we weren’t seeing Otis tracks at first.  But a dog leaves a toenail print and a more pointed toe, whereas the cats have a very round print with only the toepads leaving a mark, as the claws are retracted.

cougar tracks in the snow

The gang always stops for lunch at the turnaround point:

Then we walked up to view the falls, which are still mostly frozen, but do have water breaking through in places now.  Barb was up there last Friday and said it was completely frozen then, so that is yet another sign that the thaw may be coming.  We experienced a mild chinook-like wind on the way out.

Falls Creek Falls

Felt good to get out on the skis today.