Opening pic..
Sunday, Chiyoko, Chizuru & I headed on up the Paradise trail to..... Paradise
There were some folks camping at the TH but no other cars parked there. We began the steady but gentle climb.
Ran into our first patches of snow at about 4500' and then solid snow at about 4800'. Very wet, soggy & slushy stuff!
We had followed a set of prints up the trail to about 4800' were the snow depth reach about 8" and the maker of those prints turned around. We donned our snow shoes that we almost didn't bring & then continued onwards to the junction with the PCT.
We then carried on upwards to the Paradise loop trail junction.
Our original goal was Split Rock but it had taken us a bit longer to get to the upper junction than we expected & so contented ourselves with a look at Lost Creek.
We then headed on over to find a bare patch of Bear Grass to sit on for Lunch!
We hadn't seen the iconic Paradise Loop sign at the upper junction so I had assumed it was snow covered (as it should be) but on the way down I noticed the very top of the post just level with the top of the snow.
I last hiked this trail on 06/29/2014 at that time this sign was completely buried in snow!
All that was left was the hike back down! One thing to note at some time in the past the path of the Paradise trail has been changed & is now longer than the trail on most maps. It's 6 miles to the PCT and the best part of 7 to the Lost Creek crossing.
A quick video of the days expedition!
https://youtu.be/RSAgrc8sil0
Our hike came in at 13.9 miles with about 3200' of EG. Other hikers seen on the trail: ZERO!
