Today’s hike was intended to be kind of a redemption from all the rain we’ve had recently. It was Juneteenth and I had the day off and the weather report looked good – mostly sunny weather. When I woke up it was overcast outside and the deck was wet, but it was still supposed to be nice. So we packed up and headed out. On the way it started raining! I almost turned around because I wasn’t in the mood for another wet, cold day. I continued on and the weather kept kind of going back and forth between light rain, fog and just overcast. As we got higher, it seemed like the weather was improving – we had a couple of sunbreaks on the way up so I hoped it would improve as the day went on.

We got to the trailhead – the plan was to hike up the Fanton trail (go as far up the road as we could – I wasn’t sure how far the snow would go) then head up to Squaw/Tumala Mountain and if we had time, go back down Old Baldy to its junction with White Iris where we stopped last month. I was hoping we would see some snow (so Thor could play in it) but not TOO much snow. When we got to the trailhead, I saw something I’ve never seen – people camped at the trailhead. I didn’t see any people, just tents and vehicles. I parked down by the road and leashed up Thor just in case they had dogs. We got up to where the trail took off and headed into the woods. As we were walking up the trail, I did see a couple people out on the landing (they had built a fire out there), but that was the only time I saw them.

After a short bit, and seeing no other fresh footprints in the snow at the beginning of the trail, I took Thor’s leash off. We continued up and soon after we left the small un-named creek, the snow stopped and the trail was completely clear. We hiked up to the junction with Old Baldy and headed Southeast to Squaw/Tumala Mountain. We had clear trail until shortly before the saddle just north of the mountain. At that point the snow started and it got deep pretty quickly, although there were some spots in the trees where the trail was clear. The last bit of climbing up to the road the snowdrifts over the trail were very deep and very steep. I had to kick steps into the snow to get across them. We quickly got to the road where we encountered probably 4 feet of snow at its deepest. We walked up to the lookout – the radio repeater was still buried by a lot of snow but it wasn’t like when we were here last May.

We headed up to the lookout location where the old steps are – amazingly the steps were not covered in snow:

It was still a bit early for lunch, but I thought we could stop, take a break and have some water and a snack. There wasn’t much to see – the clouds kind of floated in and out but didn’t really get to see much:

After eating a quick snack and getting some water, we headed over to the other end of the ridge. Along the way, I found where someone thought this was a good place to shoot some skeet- I found quite a few broken skeet scattered about:

While walking around, we had a brief lull in the clouds where you could see a little bit, but not much:

We looked around for a bit and then headed back down – when we got to the junction with the Fanton trail, we continued straight, heading north on Old Baldy to its junction with White Iris, where we were about a month ago – at that point there was a LOT more snow here than there was today:

I looked around some more for the “new” White Iris trail sign that I saw back in December of 2020 – we looked last time and didn’t see it but were wondering if we were just looking in the wrong spot or it was covered in snow or something. Today there was almost no snow here and I still didn’t see it. I’m not sure what happened to it. It was a nice sign.

We turned around and headed back up the hill – that is one thing with the Old Baldy trail – it follows the landscape – it goes up and down a LOT. I think parts of it are old Indian trails as some parts literally go straight up and down the hill instead of doing switchbacks or something more gentle. At some point we finally got done with the upds and downs and finally got on a nice gentle downhill grade. Shortly after that we came to the junction with the Fanton trail and headed back.

Somewhere along the Fanton trail, we crossed a snowmelt runoff and there might be some sort of spring as well – it is pretty wet and it had skunk cabbage growing in it:

Thor drank a little water and we continued down – we were soon back into the snow along the creek and then back at the trailhead. I was wondering if the campers would still be there – they were – at least their tents and vehicles were. We walked over to the new bridge over the creek which was really nice:

And then enjoyed the somewhat better views from the landing – this was looking back to Squaw/Tumala Mountain:

We looked around a bit and then headed back to the truck. We loaded up and since it was still early, we headed up 4614 just to see how far we could get. We didn’t get too far – maybe a half mile or so and then the snow covered the road. I might have been able to make it thru it, but I didn’t feel like getting myself unstuck, so I turned around and we headed home.

It was a nice day in the woods – I love these trails as they go thru some beautiful forest. I only wish we could have seen more when were up on Squaw/Tumala Mountain. It was still a great day out.