Tiger
1-2 Snow Loop
12-13-08
A last clear day
before some snow in the lowlands. There was snow down to about 1000' a
few days earlier. I chose to stay closer to home and head over to Tiger
Mountain. It was a balmy 38 degrees at Eastgate on the drive over. One
hiker started out as I arrived and I never did see him again. I hiked
up to the Tiger Mountain Trail on dirt. As I ascended near High Point
Creek snow began at about 1300'. At first it was just a little on the
ground. There were a number of branches down across the trail from
a recent wind storm. I managed to remove more than half a
dozen bigger ones. Soon I could see footprints in the snow.
There was just the one person's tracks in the fresh snow. It was warm
enough that the trees were raining down melting snow. I was also
working up quite a sweat.
Near where the route meets up with the old High Point Trail once again
there is a tree down across the trail. It is so long that going up or
down the steep slope would not be easy. I managed to crawl over it with
some difficulty. That one needs to be cut out soon. That was the only
difficulty on the whole route due to the wind storm. Back on the
straight up the slope old route the snow began to get deeper. This old
route follows a long gone logging swath and is more open. The bridge
had a solid layer of snow up to about 4 inches deep. A few minutes
later I reached Fred's Corner.
Here the TMT goes right and I chose to go left. Although I was not far
from Interstate 90 it was completely quiet. Perhaps the snow had
something to do with it but I could not hear any sounds. No squirrels,
no birds, no people, and no cars. My traverse on the old West Side RR
Grade took me to the intersection with the Preston Trail. Here I was
surprised to see the footprints headed down. Now I would have to make
my own trail. In this next section I found many branches heavily laden
with snow hanging down across the trail.
The snow was beautiful but a real pain to get by without getting
soaked. I had more than a few snow piles go down my neck. A small price
to pay for fresh untracked snow so close to home. My pace slowed a lot
between breaking trail and fighting around the heavy snow laden
branches. I had hoped to take a side trip to the Tiger Christmas Tree
but I could see that there would not be enough time. The trail was
completely buried and I had to stop a few times to make sure I was
still on track.
At the Bootleg Trail junction I turned right and traversed below the
summit of Tiger 1. In one open swath I found the deepest snow of the
day. It was knee deep for a short distance. Back in the trees it was
only about 6 inches deep again. Along this traverse a lone hiker using
my tracks caught up and went by me. It had been calm all morning though
moderately high winds were forecast. I expected the wind to pick up
when I came out of the forest at the Hikers Hut. Instead it was almost
calm. Not the rime ice I found last
December but still plastered in white.
The bench was almost buried in snow so I chose to hop into the Hut for
lunch. It was probably a little below freezing though not
uncomfortably cold due to the minimal wind. After lunch I
headed on down the road towards Tiger 2. There were lots of prints in
the snow now though I did not see anyone along the way. The one thing I
did not have was any views. The cloud level was near the top of the
Tiger peaks and I could not see much of anything.
From Tiger 2 I found no trees down across the trail but many more snow
laden branches to fight through. I even found two snow arches. Tall
skinny trees were bent over and form complete arches with snow frozen
to the whole thing. I moved one big branch at the TMT junction with the
RR Grade. Just before the big bridge there was a 25' long jungle of
bent over trees blocking the trail. I was about soaked after working
through there.
From there it was an easy walk. At the power line swath within 1/3 mile
of the car I caught up with two hikers. They were the only folks I saw
except for the lone hiker near the top. Not bad solitude for Tiger
Mountain on a weekend. It turned out to be a great day for a walk in
the snow.