[kitya]

I wanted to visit Red Top lookout for a while now, but since in summer one can drive all the way almost to the summit it is not much of a hike and a long drive, so I never really found an excuse to go, but recently I stole the idea to snowshoe to the Red Top lookout in winter from Jake. I parked near the general store right next to the helpful sign.

Starting on the road there was some reasonable amount of hard snow, but, unfortunately once up from the road and following the ridgeline on the small hills, the snow disappeared ☹ Than eventually snow appeared again. I ended up putting on and off snowshoes a few times, which was not super convenient. At one point I cut through very thick and finally very snowy area with lots of smaller dense trees. For a dozen winters now snowshoeing in the west coast mountains there was one animal, whose presence was obvious, yet for years I never managed to get even the glimpse of her. She might as well be the Big Foot. Literally. Because I am talking, of cause, about the snowshoe hare. Everywhere one goes through the winter forest, she is always the one over excited animal breaking winding trails over untouched snow. For years I just assumed that snowshoe hares just do something weird like maybe they only come out at night or dusk and dawn or some other unseemly hour and maybe hide in some burrows under the snow. Eventually I totally gave up on ever seeing one. Once, a while ago, snowshoeing with Cookie she pulled the leash suddenly looking down the slope. - Silly Cookie, - I said, - it is just a snowball rolling down the slope! But than I looked at the snowball closer and it changed the direction and started running up the slope instead. Surprisingly, this is not what snowballs usually do. The problem is that once you see the snowshoe hare for the first time, you become like Cookie and every single ball of snow looks like a potential snowshoe hare. Snowshoe hares are amazing. Oh, they are out and about during the short winter day. But they are fast. They like to move around in the densest tree growth available, that humans tend to avoid. But most importantly they are exactly same white-grey color as the snow. They are true snow ninjas. Cookie is fascinated with lagomorphs. In the city she does this weird thing with city dwelling bunnies where she follows their smell and poops, intensely focused always looking at and smelling the ground. Sometimes she comes inches away from a bunny, who is sitting motionless and pretending to be a statue. At that point Cookie realizes that the smell trail of the bunny ends sighs, turns arounds and walks back without ever noticing the bunny right in front of her. This is another super power of the lagomorph. When they want to, they can look like they are made of stone. Over the years I finally saw maybe three snowshoe hares total, though quite possibly they saw me way more times. But finally, yesterday when fighting up the slope with the dense brush I stopped to catch my breath, there was a snowshoe just sitting a foot away from me. Now I can die happy.

Past the bunny there was no more exiting adventures until the summit, which was very cold and supper windy. Cookie was scared with her tail down and whimpering, because the icy snow was blowing into her eyes. There was a big storm coming and we retreated quickly. While earlier in the day it was partly sunny, now back in the forest it was snowing really hard now. It was hard to see and me and Cookie even got lost once a little bit and had to take walk in a circle to find our direction again. Eventually we got back to the car when it was already completely dark. Very nice lady from the general store was standing next to my car and said she was trying to find my license plate number and call the sheriff, because she was concerned and closing the store for the night. She said they have a problem cougar in the area ☹ It was really tough driving back with lots of snow falling fast and 0 visibility. Everything was completely white and I couldn’t see where the road was. The car was annoyed about this too and constantly complaining about lidar not working due to snow. I-90 was even worse, same no visibility, but lots of cars and large trucks creating a mess out of the snow. It took really long to get home.

[Hiker Mama]

Gorgeous photos!!! I have only seen a snowshoe hare once, at twilight at Gold Creek. You got some good pics.

[kitya]

[JimK]

That is a fun trip. I've done it several times. Here is a shot of Red Top on a sunny Presidents Day the morning after your trip. Taken from the WF Teanaway with some zoom.

Red-Top-Lookout

[kitya]