Snowshoeing Trillium Lake

 

I hadn’t given much thought as to WHAT exactly I was going to be doing for either the end of my 2016 or the start of my 2017. In fact, the only thing that I WAS doing was sleeping as the clock turned to the next year because I wasn’t going to mess up my sleep schedule for work on Monday.

It’s not that 2016 wasn’t spectacular. In fact, I learned quite a lot!
It’s not that I’m excited for 2017. In fact, I have never looked forward to anything more than the adventures that this year will bring!

My friend Trevor, it seemed, didn’t have much planned either and somehow, through a conversation on Twitter and both our desires to just GET OUT and DO SOMETHING! We ended up coming up with this great plan to go snowshoe Trillium Lake at Government Camp at Timberline Lodge.

 

Honestly, we were probably two of the most underprepared people to go up there, everything was so last minute but it turned out to be such a great time! Trevor reserved us snow boots, snowshoes, and poles for us and I drove us to the destination… at a whopping 5:00 am.

We hadn’t really thought of the fact that this was New Years weekend meaning that everybody and their family were going to be heading up to the mountains – we were just thinking that it was the weekend and we wanted to do something.

Getting into the lodge there was no one really there as of yet. Driving to the Trillium Lake parking lot there was still barely anyone there. It was pretty exciting though and I’m disappointed in myself for not getting a video or a picture, but the only other people up there were some cross country skiers and a team of sled dogs heading out on the trail to go mushing! I can’t tell you how bad I wanted to join in with them but the dogs were really excited and, honestly, they looked like professionals training and I didn’t want to get in the way.

The dogs took off a hot mess down the trail in front of us and we cautiously put on our snowshoes. The quote from the lady at the rental service was still running through my brain, “If you can walk, you can snowshoe!” I was really hoping that I wasn’t about to find out that I hadn’t been walking right my whole life!

Sure enough, snowshoeing is REALLY simple!

I don’t know why I was so apprehensive about it! Granted, where we were “snowshoeing” I am pretty convinced that we could have simply just walked in our boots BUT, saying that we went snowshoeing was ten times more fun.

It was absolutely quiet and beautiful, serene almost, out on the trail. No one else really showed up until afternoon at which point we were finishing our trail back at the parking lot which was filled with cars stalking for a spot. And when I say “showed up” they “showed up” in droves! Very thankful that we went early!

My partner in crime, Trevor, whose birthday was just a few short days later, was a trooper and walked across the frozen lake with me, making our own trail through the fresh powder to the dock. While crossing the lake we saw that someone had written a message in the snow – after carefuly analyzing it we both started laughing as it stated, “SEND NUDES!” I was absolutely convinced that we had to get a “Transformation Tuesday” picture and an excuse to come back in the summer and enjoy the lake! I definitely see kayaking on the same exact path across the river just eight months or so from now!!!

I was absolutely convinced that we had to get a “Transformation Tuesday” picture and an excuse to come back in the summer and enjoy the lake! I definitely see kayaking on the same exact path across the river just eight months or so from now!!!

Our timing on the day couldn’t have been any better – we made it back to return our rentals in time to catch the first half of the University of Washington’s semi-final football game… to which we quickly realized they were probably not going to win and so back home we went with very limited traffic.

Granted I definitely didn’t make it to the ball drop but my friends, knowing me all too well, sent me messages at the eastern time change to wish me a Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rating: 5 Stars
As long as the weather holds up, I could see it being miserable if the weather was gross or a blizzard was coming in, I highly recommend this as a way to get out and enjoy nature. Not just that but it’s also not THAT much of a workout. My hip flexors were sore for a day or two but that was all!