Snowshoeing...or not!

Shawn and I planned on going snowshoeing today!  We went to church last night, and we left home around 7:30 in search of snow.  We spent some time last night, looking at a guidebook and checking online to find some options for a good trail.  We decided to go back to a trail that we hiked last summer, the Lake 22 Trail.  (It's the trail that we first hiked on the 4th of July.)  According to the guidebook, it's good for snowshoeing from late December to early April or something like that.  It also had the added benefit of being a place that we knew how to find.  :)

So we packed up, loaded the car, and drove to the trailhead.  Look at all the snow!

Yeah....there was no snow at the trailhead.  We took our snowshoes anyways, though, since we know that the trail has an elevation gain of about 1200 feet.  It was definitely possible that we'd hit snow not too far up the trail.

Or not.  Before too long, we were both shedding some layers (like jackets, hats, gloves, earmuffs).  It was pretty foggy and a bit "misty," but that was it.  Satchel loved this hike, though, especially since it was pretty deserted, so he was allowed to go off-leash for most of the hike.

We did eventually find some snow near the top of the trail.  There was never enough to bother putting on the snowshoes, but at least we got to touch snow!  And Satchel enjoyed running around on it a bit.  Here are some pics from the upper part of the trail and the lake.

So...we didn't actually get to do any snowshoeing.  Oh well.  At least we got in a nice hike today!  And now we know that if we actually want to use our snowshoes around here, we need to get a lot closer to (or even on the other side of) the mountain passes.