jt, Capt Kirk and myself had been planning a Nov 10th hike for several weeks. We all had the day off and birthdays to celebrate. What better way to treat ourselves than with a mountain adventure. Most of the plans we considered fell through because of the road closures and trail damage caused by this week's heavy rains, so we decided on Denny Creek to Melakwa Pass as a safe bet.
We actually planned to hike in from the Denny Creek trail head and cross all the way over Melakwa Pass, past Chair Peak Lake to Gem Lake and then out the Snow Lake trail to the Alpental parking lot. We planned on mixed rain and snow and maybe 6 inches of snow. We found ourselves in a full fledged winter storm, though, and decided to turn back about a half way between Upper Melakwa Lake and Melakwa Pass.
Lower Melakwa Lake had ice starting to form around the edges, and Upper Melakwa Lake was completely covered with an inch of slushy ice.
It snowed steadily and heavily the entire 8.5 hours we were out there. It was a beautiful, dry, fluffy powder, easily blown by the wind, so not only did out tracks fill in quickly, but snow drifts between the boulders above the lakes were waist deep by the afternoon. It was slow going, and cold in the exposed areas above the lakes, but we had a great time in the first really big snow of the season. There was over a foot of snow at Alpental by 4pm, and I-90 was being plowed and eastbound traffic was being metered by the state patrol.
I wanted to take a lot more pictures, but I was concerned about my camera getting wet, so I only managed these.
2nd Denny Creek crossing at the slippery slabs
Denny Creek's slippery slabs
Falls with flash
Falls without flash
Crossing log has about a foot of new snow on it
Creek and snow
Captain Kirk at Melakwa Lakes
crossing the boulder field above Upper Melakwa Lake. Slow going with waist deep snow between the rocks.
crossing the boulder field above Upper Melakwa Lake
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