Dumping down the snow

What better else is there to do when it's dumping down snow in the hills than go climb a mountain? We couldn't resist, so we grabbed our snowshoes and headed into the storm up to Sun Top Sno-park, just north of Mt. Rainier National Park.

There was a good base of nearly two feet of snow when we began our journey. The trees were painted a fresh hue of white.

We stumbled upon this icy home soon after hitting the trail. What a cozy little igloo!

We had to climb in and check out the inside. It was amazingly bright, even on a cloudy day. Here's Brooke, crawling back out.

Andrea, enjoying a stop by the igloo.


Every time Andrea turned around, there was Brooke munching on a 'snack'....
Mmmm....Nature's Cotton Candy!

Shhh....can you hear it? Listen carefully. It's that perfect, undisturbed stillness.

Andrea took a walk out through the trees to check out the snow hare tracks. We also saw some cougar/mountain lion tracks in the area, along with hoof prints. We were hoping to be able to look down into the valley to see the White River elk herd...but we found nothing.

Brooke pushed through the branches to get a view down into the valley below.

These branches were coated with a fresh breath of snow.

The closer we got to the top, the heavier and thicker the snow. It quickly piled up on our clothing and backpacks.

It would soon be getting dark, so we shifted gears from our constant uphill and took some time to put on our warm coats before we began our descent. There was a good 6-8 inches of snow that hit during our hike, making it hard to make out the prints we had made on our journey up.

It was a beautiful, fun trip! Because of all the snow coming in, there were few people on the trail, making a very quiet, peaceful hike. We'll be sure to get out there again to finish our hike to the top. Time to go home now.

But wait! The adventures don't stop there. Just when we thought all our chances to see elk were finished for the day, we were surprised to see one munching on a carrot outside a house in Greenwater!
Don't see this everyday...