Snow on Warner Mountain

 The Pacific Northwest provides some pretty spectacular adventures, there is no doubt about that. About a year ago I added this item to my list and this January I checked it off. Renting a forest fire lookout. People here love these; with justified reason. But because they are so well loved, if your idea of an adventure to a lookout has anything to do with a weekend day, well than the planning upfront requires something along the lines of 5 months. They tend to be that far booked out! I booked the Warner Mountain lookout the previous August and still was only able to get a Sunday and Monday night reserved. Turns out I am a lucky girl and my days just happened to unexpectedly fall over a three day weekend. Joined by a longtime friend from Seattle and her significant other, our party of four made the venture into the hut on skis and snow shoes. The website cautions you that the road is not maintained for winter travel and it is advised to park a good distance away and hike in (good distance = 8+ miles). We had two pretty hardy trucks so the adventurous side of us put us something like 3.5 miles away. We questioned this choice but decided to play our cards. The next few days that followed it snowed. I don't mean a little. I'm referring to something along the lines of feet of snow. It snowed A LOT.

 

 so conversations went along the lines of "hmmm it is really a blizzard out there...yeah there is kind of a bit of snow coming down" In the midst we enjoyed ourselves. You see, inside the hut you are quite cozy. I was amazed to find a propane heater, a fully equipped kitchen, tables, chairs, a bed. We were set. During the day we used our back country setups to do a bit of skiing and exploring and in the evening enjoyed hot toddies, good food and good company. On departure day, we had received so much snow that our tracks in were so far from covered, I questioned our choices of parking. Out we went, blizzard to accompany us. Reaching the truck we found it practically lost in white. Chains on and 4 wheel drive set to low we amazingly creeped our way out with not even a slip. The daring parking move in the snow; would I advise it? not at all, not unless you really enjoy digging. We just got lucky. Upon leaving we passed the new Warner Mountain residents on their trek in. They had covered something like 4 miles from their car already and were still about 4 miles out. They had parked their Subaru way down the road and were making the day long slog in. I guess we had it a bit easier.