[kitya]

It is December, so sunrise is late and sunset is early and it is very hard to get out of bed and drive somewhere far. And Cookie doesn't like waking up early either. Plus I promised her last week we would stop by North Bend bakery and get her dog cookies (North Bend Bakery makes best, most fresh and moist peanut butter/oats dog cookies that Cookie loves), so we had to go somewhere short and close by. I recently remembered that I have never been to Guye peak, so today looked like as good day as any to cross it off the list. Starting from Snoqualmie pass this is not an area to expect solitude and there were lots of people snowshoeing, skiing, hiking and sledding everywhere and I cannot blame them - the weather was beautiful and sunny. While Cookie usually is not a big fan of crowds, one of her favorite winter activities around busy parking lots is hunting snowmen and eating their carrots. Today was her lucky day.

We started from the east summit parking lot, walked under the highway and walked for a short distance on the very busy PCT before turning left across the creek towards Guye Peak/Cave Ridge saddle. To my surprise this area had no people and I got to break trail in very nice super powdery snow until the saddle. From the footprints it looks like in the morning most people going to Guye Peak came from Alpental/Snow Lake TH instead, a way that is even shorter, but very steep.

From the saddle it is a short walk up the ridge to North false summit. There were lots of tracks there, but me and Cookie had the summit all to ourselves for quite a while, before we got bored and went down. Inversion created very nice views. We didn't see any footprints leading to the true summit and decided not to try that either. On the way back down we saw two groups coming up.

Soon we got back to the parking lot and drove to North Bend. Sadly the bakery was closed, because someone in the immediate family of one of the employees tested positive for covid Very sad. I hope they get better soon and bakery re-opens soon too! Please support them when you are hiking around North Bend area.

[MtnManic]

Your pictures are gorgeous!