Thirteen of us met in the upper parking lot at Heather Meadows. This had been billed as a trip suitable for beginners and lo and behold we had three that had never been snowshoeing. Several others were unfamiliar with the area. I told them the pace was going to be moderate and I expected many stops for questions and equipment adjustments. There were several stoppages for equipment adjustments but most of those involved removing coats, hats and gloves. Did I say the weather was really pleasant. Temperature was right around 30 and while we were a little chilly as we started we were all soon quite comfortable. We headed up toward the Summer Visitors Center pointing out local landmarks. We had a little discussion on avalanche awareness, but we really only touched on the subject. Hopefully a little later in the season Bud Hardwick can be convinced to do one of his excellent Avalanche Awareness classes for the club. It seemed that all along the way there were little groups on skis or snowshoes that appeared to be doing some sort of class. We went out past the Visitors Center and found a nice little promontory to sit down on and have a bite of lunch. I later regretted that if I had only moved a few hundred yards to the North we could have had our lunch while bathed in sunshine. We took a mostly different path back to the cars and ended up with about 2-1/2 miles of snowshoeing in about 2-1/2 hours. Most of the group called it quits at that point but three of us took off on another little loop around Picture Lake. This added another 1-1/2 miles to the trip and proved that treewells can still be a problem this early in the season.
Oh, by the way, all the beginners did just great on this trip, you wouldn’t have known they were beginners, the only equipment problems involved a more experienced member. Photos on the MBC Flickr Page.
Ed Alm