Cutthroat Trail.......Snowshoeing North Cascades Highway

I have a confession to make, I have been having some winter blues. Not sure if they can be officially called winter blues due to we have had little to no winter. I have been very impatiently waiting for the snow to arrive, it comes, blows through, makes the ground white, then its gone. The last few days we have been sitting at temperatures in the 40's. What is up with winter. One thing I can say for sure is I am very thankful for the few trips we made up highway 20 before the silver star gate was closed. Our trip to Cutthroat Trail was back in November, when we had visions of winter coming to the valley very soon. The snow was nice and fluffy and deep. Pleasant day to get out and enjoy it, one of those days where your not sure if the clouds where going to allow the blue sky to show it self or not. We parked right off the highway with a couple of other cars and Snowshoed up the road to the trail head. Wasn't very long and more hikers, cross country skiers, and furry four legged creatures where right behind us. Nice wide road about a mile or so that leads to the actual trail head. We made our way to the trail head and spent sometime clearing the rails of snow, what better use for those poles than scrapping the paint off them on the metal bridge rails. From there we continued on up the trail till the younger stomper's where worn out. Back down the way we had came, in our usual rambunctious form. Lots of snow flying whether from our snowshoes or those nice round hand formed hard balls that might or might not hit their target. In the past we have been able to drive right up to the trail head and start from there, but the snowplow made a decent size berm so that the road in would be useable for skiers. Starting just off the highway makes it a nice slow up hill grade into the trail head. This trail is not my favorite in the summer because of the masses of people that use it and it tends to be a rather dry, dusty trail with very little low growing vegetation and flowers along the way. But in the winter it is a rather beautiful trail, with everything covered in white and the trees heavy with snow, it's a different world. It is also fairly flat which makes for easy early snowshoeing.