Here we be again..............Maple Pass Trail, Hwy 20 North Cascades

I promise this will be our last visit to Maple Pass Trail this year. Unless we take up Heli-skiing, not likely but tempting. I really tried to convince my fellow hikers that we needed to go across the road to the Pacific Crest Trail and up to Cutthroat Pass, but no go I was out voted. I think they were more concerned with how far we would be hiking that day instead of seeing Larches. The trail started off a little muddy, water standing in some areas. This is the first trail that we have used hiking poles on. Usually we bring them, forget them in the truck or end up getting tired of using them and try to poan them off to one of our other fellow hikers. We just haven't got the whole hiking pole thing down yet. We have even managed to leave them leaning against a tree and had to go back and get them. But they came in very handy this time, especially getting around some very muddy spots and as we hiked father up the trail the snow go fairly deep. It was a beautiful day, cold when we left the trail head, but not too far up we were stripping hats and gloves. It was pretty cool to hike this trail with so much snow on it. The views were clear of the mountains and awesome as usual. We hiked up above the view point for Lewis Lake and the snow was knee deep and getting deeper, went up around the next bend, the trail follows the backside of the lake and things didn't look to good for going farther. Weather was warming up and the snow was showing signs of shifting. So we back tracked to a spot with a view of the mountains, ate some lunch and built a snowman. It was a fun relaxing day, no burning desire to turn out the miles, just out to enjoy the fresh snow and see some larches. We goofed around on our way back down, took our time. Give a boy a hiking pole and he has 24 hour entertainment. There's nothing like like getting a big o' pile of snow down you back because he reached up to smack a high branch covered in snow with his pole as he walks by. He did go back and find my very expensive lens filter on the snow covered trail after I realized I had dropped it, man that would have been a painfully expensive hike. It might not have been the trail I wanted to hike, but it was still a beautiful day with some great views of the mountains and a few larches.