Pederson Loop

While considering the various pros and cons of various snowshoe hikes, it occurred to me that the Wednesday Group had converted 2 feet of powder into a snow shoe freeway a few days before, and the weather forecast looked user friendly.

14 hikers headed up Dead Indian Memorial Road and hit a rather icy highway which was well-plowed but requiring low speed. We gingerly crept up to Mile 27 and were rewarded. The trail was just about perfect with enough dry snow but zero trail breaking was required to get to the shelter. The forest scene was spectacular.

After lunch at the shelter we split the group in two and half of us did the long circle and half returned the way we came in. All went well until we hit the forest road heading back towards the parking. Snowmobiles had torn up any snowshoe tracks and while the road was not bad, it wasn’t great, because of the snowmobiles. We also were unable to find the left turn through the woods because the snowmobiles had erased any trace, so we ended up taking the road back to Dead Indian and walking the half mile to the parking. Total distance wasn’t much different but much less fun. Fortunately the weather was sunny by the time we did all this and we may have avoided being clobbered by large chunks of snow coming off the trees as the temperature rose.

I told the group that went back on the PCT by radio to head home and meet us at Caldera but we arrived to find Caldera closed, so some of us drowned our tears at The Growler Guys. Kudos to Elizabeth and Judy for scouting the over 5 mile circle route for the Friday gang, to MIke L for toughing it out with a bad knee, and to Liz for keeping my spirits up as we helped each other miss the turnoff.

Hike Leader: Kerr

Photos By: Bob, Dan