The 25th Annual Snow Camp – 2021. Covid be damned.

This will be a nice little throwback post to a prior Snow Camp of just a couple of years ago. It was the Silver Anniversary of Snow Camp, so I’d like to share. Good visuals with light reading. I think I’ll dabble with more of these going forward if there is interest.

If you ever want to know where some of the best snow is the state is, just try the Methow Valley. Specifically around the little town of Winthrop. Lots of x-country skiing there.

The mountains are not that high, but they do roll on forever and ever in the classic Central Washington style.

Snow Camp is always a crap shoot. The weather, the snow, the location, and the combination of all of them you can never dial in. The trip is always a random weekend picked a year out, and just go with it.

This year was incredible. Lot and lots of places to snowshoe. No huge elevation gains. Great terrain and snow and views. And full sun.

It is trips like this that really make me glad we have been able to keep this as an annual event. The hike on the first day was just to this little unnamed summit we picked out a couple of miles off the plowed road.

After an enjoyable hike, we each pop the single traditional hiking beer and take in the surroundings.

Couldn’t ask for a better spot to be on a literally picture-perfect day.

It took a while to set up the summit pose without a tripod. But there wasn’t any wind at least.

We rented this great little zero-carbon AirBnB house. Lots of natural light. Perfect for playing cards. Nothing says Snow Camp dealing a little Village Idiot.

Winthrop does have a nice little brewery in town. Good ales and good eats.

The only problem is they forced us into one of these sweaty petri dish pandemic geo-dome pods.

Day two was going to be even better than day one. This time we did some hiking loops around the nearby state park. Although closed for winter, it was open for snow activities.

They had these really weird groomed trails. So hard-packed that we didn’t need our snowshoes. They were for those big fat tire bikes. An interesting newer winter pastime I hear.

These were some of the most comfortable snow miles I’ve ever done. The company was great and the weather even better.

A nice little broken-down cabin to give you that old-time pioneer look and feel.

Taking a break along the trail. Too good of a day not to stop and just enjoy it.

More yard art. Seems like the trails of this state park have a lot of arts and crafts stuff scattered about.

We finally approach the lake itself, which we plan to circumnavigate on the way back to the trailhead and the vehicles.

Wonderful lake with a great shoreline trace. Not too big, not too small, just right.

Taking yet another break on the trail.

The group got separated. And some of us decided to take a shortcut across the ice on the lake. It should hold.

We only got this close for the photo. Found out quickly that we needed to hike about 20 feet apart to stop the somewhat unnerving sound of the ice snapping and cracking under our feet.

Kind of felt like being on an arctic expedition. But I don’t have to starve to death or burn seal blubber to stay warm.

The temp in this photo is just under 15 F. The nice part is, at that temp the ice in your whiskey lasts a really long time.

The sun would be setting in under an hour. And the temps plunged with those open skies. We hit -8 F by morning.

And those temps sometimes give you a cool ring of ice crystals around the moon.

It was a great trip. Most of the guys have a solid 20+ years in this outing. A couple of the newbies were a little under 10. As we age out, I think we might have to throw out the offer to our sons to tag along. Need to get a succession plan in place.

I know I know. Finally an easy read with lots of pictures. Hope you enjoyed.