Today Karen and I hiked up snowy, unplowed Hatchery Creek road in the Cascade Mountains, eight miles total with a thousand feet of elevation gain.

"Will we need snowshoes or microspikes?" we debated when we arrived. We chose microspikes. At first, it was easy to walk on packed down, pickup tracks. After a mile, we saw where trucks had turned around because it was too steep and slippery. They were fishtailing and gave up.

Goodbye packed tire tracks. Hello, post-holing in deep snow!

Hatchery Creek was musically rushing with snow-melt. The mountain road got steeper as we ascended.

"I love how quiet and serene it is without being inundated by lots of people and dogs," I said. We never saw another person. Perfect.

Because Washington State is so far north, the sun sets far to the south in December. Days get shorter until Winter Solstice on December 21. South-facing slopes were bare of snow where they get sun. We were hiking on the snowy north side of the mountain.

We stood to eat lunch because it was too cold to sit on snow. Even with an inflatable pad. Only our feet were cold in boots standing on the snow.

As the day got warmer, the temperature changed just enough to make snow clump and stick to the bottom of our micro-spikes. Tired of trying to knock off wads of snow, we ditched the micro-spikes for the last mile to the car. Watch out for slippery ice.

We agreed Hatchery Creek road is wonderful in the snow. Wildflowers are great in Spring.

Photos:

1. Lunch view.

2. Frozen fog covered a baby Fir tree with ice crystals.

3. Looking north. Fog was rolling in.

4. South-facing slope was mostly bare of snow. It gets sun.

5. Broken by heavy snow, a dried wildflower looks like a lamp.