Umbrella Falls trail in winter
Posted: January 21st, 2019, 5:58 pm
Having been down the Newton Creek trail to Newton Creek and beyond many times, we thought the Umbrella Falls trail sounded interesting.
We parked at the HRM nordic center lot this morning and headed up the Umbrella Falls trail on a good solid base of at least 20 inches of snow, the top few being recent powder and then an icy crust. The air was chilly but not too bad at 28 degrees. The sun was out and the sky mostly blue, unlike the Gov. Camp side. The first section of the trail was pretty pleasant -- fresh snow on all the trees, and the quiet of the forest.
Soon the trail crosses a ski run and heads up a ridge. I was following the trail shown on my GPS so I feel reasonably certain it was the actual Umbrella Falls Trail. Some nice views opened up -- see photo. Got to a second ski run and looked for where the snowshoe trail continues slightly uphill from the intersection but could not see it. With vast numbers of people snowboarding by, and many going up the embankment above where one might logically walk along the edge of the ski run up to the continuation of the trail, it seemed unwise take the chance of getting run over. We backed up some and snowshoed cross-country up the ridge trying to connect with the next zig-zag of the Umbrella Falls trail. I burned a lot of energy breaking a new trail on the side of the steep ridge. After a couple dead ends where trees and logs blocked the route, my GPS showed that I had reached where the trail zags back northward but there was no sign of any recent tracks. Even with the extenders on my MSR snowshoes, I found myself starting to slide sideways on the buried frozen crust as the sun started melting the snow a bit. That and the continued steepness made it seem less than safe, especially for the downhill trip. After lunch, we decided to give up on Umbrella Falls. And returning on the Umbrella Falls trail between the two ski runs, a couple snowboarders came zooming down pretty fast. Really you only have what seems like milliseconds to jump out of their way. So I can't say I'd recommend this outing in the winter.
We added some mileage exploring around Clark Creek. There's a tree down on top of the bridge over the creek and with the shutdown, no rangers are probably going to clean it up anytime soon. See photo. It doesn't prevent you from crossing, just slows things down a bit. I was looking at the topo map to see if there was any point revisiting trying to get the Umbrella Falls in winter, but even with better snow conditions and going cross-country at the first ski run crossing, I think there are too many really steep pitches.
We parked at the HRM nordic center lot this morning and headed up the Umbrella Falls trail on a good solid base of at least 20 inches of snow, the top few being recent powder and then an icy crust. The air was chilly but not too bad at 28 degrees. The sun was out and the sky mostly blue, unlike the Gov. Camp side. The first section of the trail was pretty pleasant -- fresh snow on all the trees, and the quiet of the forest.
Soon the trail crosses a ski run and heads up a ridge. I was following the trail shown on my GPS so I feel reasonably certain it was the actual Umbrella Falls Trail. Some nice views opened up -- see photo. Got to a second ski run and looked for where the snowshoe trail continues slightly uphill from the intersection but could not see it. With vast numbers of people snowboarding by, and many going up the embankment above where one might logically walk along the edge of the ski run up to the continuation of the trail, it seemed unwise take the chance of getting run over. We backed up some and snowshoed cross-country up the ridge trying to connect with the next zig-zag of the Umbrella Falls trail. I burned a lot of energy breaking a new trail on the side of the steep ridge. After a couple dead ends where trees and logs blocked the route, my GPS showed that I had reached where the trail zags back northward but there was no sign of any recent tracks. Even with the extenders on my MSR snowshoes, I found myself starting to slide sideways on the buried frozen crust as the sun started melting the snow a bit. That and the continued steepness made it seem less than safe, especially for the downhill trip. After lunch, we decided to give up on Umbrella Falls. And returning on the Umbrella Falls trail between the two ski runs, a couple snowboarders came zooming down pretty fast. Really you only have what seems like milliseconds to jump out of their way. So I can't say I'd recommend this outing in the winter.
We added some mileage exploring around Clark Creek. There's a tree down on top of the bridge over the creek and with the shutdown, no rangers are probably going to clean it up anytime soon. See photo. It doesn't prevent you from crossing, just slows things down a bit. I was looking at the topo map to see if there was any point revisiting trying to get the Umbrella Falls in winter, but even with better snow conditions and going cross-country at the first ski run crossing, I think there are too many really steep pitches.