Frank Wall, a friend I met hiking in the past, asked if I wanted to hike up to Summit Lake today. It's the high point on the Hartcher Pass Road that is closed in the winter. We hiked past the closed gate and climbed about 1000 feet over the packed snow along the closed road. I was surprised to see that it had been groomed for skiing and had also been well packed down by snow machines. Instead of directly following the road, we could see that the snow vehicles had cut off a few corners. Rather than going all the way to the monument, they had diverted straight down the other side. So, in order to get to the high point, we had to do a little bit of post holing. But it wasn't too bad. There were a few ski tracks going up there and we could see it from where we left the packed route. We had to take the obligatory photos from the monument so people would believe we made it. Frank brought his dog, Maya and his daughter's dog, Oakly and of course I brought Bella. The two big dogs were having a grand time play fighting with each other. They were polite and didn't try to drag Bella into their wildness. She really loved running along close to them, but not too close. All 3 dogs made it to the monument before we did. I really must come back there with my backcountry skis. It looked like perfect ski conditions. I wonder how far down the other side the trail is well packed. Maybe one could ski all the way down to where the road is closed from the other direction. That would be a fun trip, but one I probably wouldn't want to do alone. There is still some avalanche danger, but it is currently fairly low. If we get a big snowfall, I'd want to avoid the whole area though, especially as temperatures continue to warm up. We had a nice quick hike back down with 3 happy dogs.
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