Mary's Peak

We got a chance to try our new snow shoes yesterday.  The day was a rare blue sky day, so we headed for Mary's Peak, the tallest peak in Oregon's coastal range, about an hour and 45 minutes from home.  We drove up a gravel road, that had snow on it the last two miles, to the 1700 foot level where the North Ridge Trailhead was.  The trail was fairly steep and the snow became deeper the higher we went.  We were following the tracks left by a couple hikers, but we never saw anyone the whole hike.  Strange things began to happen after a couple hours. Large piles of snow high up in the trees began to soften in the sun, and would fall, knocking other snow piles off, creating a mini avalanche from the tree.  This would land with a big whomp, sometimes causing the snow on the mountainside to tumble down some.  One of these snow bombs landed right between us. There were recent branches that had been knocked down in the process, also. By this time, I had put on my snow shoes and was pleased how they allowed me to float over the snow.  However, we were both getting a little nervous about where we were, so we turned around at about the 3,000 ft. elevation level.  The peak is 4,000 feet high. We're looking forward to hiking all the way sometime soon.

 Heading out, the snow was hard and crusty, so we left our snow shoes on our packs. Later, the snow became more like deep powder.

 The weight of the snow on the tree branches made for a little limbo action in spots.

 The temperature at the trailhead was about 32 degrees, and a few degrees lower by the time we turned around.

 I'm liking the snow shoes.

Gail taking her first steps.

We finished our outing with dinner at Azul, a Mexican restaurant in Waldport.  We caused a humorous scene at the restaurant when the waitress and some other patrons heard Gail say to me, "I'm glad I survived that harrowing...", and she paused a long time, but before she could finish her sentence, the waitress and others thought she had said heroin.  Well, when she did finish, there was an outburst of relief from the waitress and diners.  We slept well last night.