Following Keeley’s first law of hiking, i.e. snow is better than rain, we decided to go high today and try for what could be a season ending snowshoe. Your fill in hike leader was more than a little concerned as we climbed up DIM in a steady drizzle. However as soon as we crossed into Klamath County the rain changed to snow, and we had snow for the rest of our tour of the Pederson Loop except for one brief interlude of sleet.

Once we got over the 6’ snow berm on the side of DIM and into the woods we found ourselves breaking trail in 2” to 4” of fresh snow on top of a 3’ to 4’ base. We made good time and arrived at the Brown Mountain Shelter by 10:30. At this point we decided to press on to complete the loop and head back to Ashland for lunch.

But, before leaving the shelter area, Liz doubled dared us to summit it for a group photo op. Not being wimps, we of course followed her up, although only Liz attained the peak. The rest of us then awkwardly made our way back down to safety while Liz doffed her snowshoes and glissaded down.

The temperature held right around freezing for the entire loop and we had a couple of semi-sunbreaks where some claimed to see shadows. However, it was mainly overcast and snowing during our time in the woods.

We made it back to the cars by 12:30 and headed down to Caldera for lunch. On the return we again hit rain followed by brilliant sun together with rain until it was just partly cloudy as we approached town.

Dan

Hike download: Pederson Nordic Loop 3-27-19.gpx