Mt Rainer / Huckelberry Creek Snow Camp
Weekend of Thursday 2/20/2014 through Saturday 2/22/2014

From: Richard Truax [mailto:rjtruax@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 12:54 PM

Subject: camp

Made it back late last night from our camp.  Turned into quite the expedition to get there.  What was to be a quick 10 minute ski up at Paradise into a camp site turned into a monster effort thanks to mother nature.  First, Paradise was closed all week due to too much snow.  They were hit with almost 8 feet of snow over the week and a lot of wind.  So, we went with plan B which had us skiing about a mile up the Huckleberry Creek Road.  This is part of our snow park system.  What is a forest service road that winds its way for 12 miles up to the North edge of Rainer National Park, in the winter becomes a x-country ski road.  We’ve done family day skies up there and found a neat spot on the side of Huckelberry Creek that in the summer is a car camping spot.  Turned out to be perfect with one problem.  They didn’t plow the road.

With Gordon’s new Honda Pilot and high clearance we were able to get about a half mile up the road.  But, we got a late start and spent a lot of time piddling with that, getting stuck and so on.  Then started skiing.  No tracks at all but deep and heaving snow.  Was a bear skiing that and pulling the sleds.  Didn’t help we grumbled the whole first mile on what was to be a plowed road.  We then needed another mile to get to our spot.  Was drizzling and the masses of snow in the trees falling off throughout to give it a bit of a surreal effect.  Ended up setting up camp in the dark.  Then all the gear we hauled in paid off and the weather turned in our favor.  Drizzle gave way to flurries and sun on Friday and then turned to full snow on our second night. Then snowed on us all day yesterday.  Girls had a fun time building or trying to build an igloo.  Didn’t finish it.  One plus of the road not being plowed is we had total solitude.  Yesterday we ran into two couples skiing as we were getting ready to leave.

Unfortunately it is also a sign of a change in culture.  X-country skiing has given way to snow shoes.  The road is ideal for kick and glide x-country for the first five miles.  It gets a lot more intense after that but still classic x-country sking.  But, over the years it gets used less and less for that.  Snow shoes are not much fun on such a road.  One nice part is we laid some really pretty tracks in the snow for a total of four miles.  Was nice to see them get used by x-country folks and not pulverized by snowshoes.

One discouraging reality that Gordon threw out on Friday, “this is the fourth camp trip we’ve done up this road over the years and with each trip we are camping closer to the car.”  We did make it all the way up to Lake Eleanor on our first try way back in 1998.  This is about a mile inside the park boundary.  Of course, that was 16 years ago now.

Now have to adjust to being back to work tomorrow.  One amazing part of this time of year it is also spring.  Sally got her seeds and we crank up the Green House today.

Take care
Richard, Sally and Emilia