Independence Mine Hike

I wanted to drive all the way up to Independence Mine to at least have a look at all the avalanches that had closed the road a couple of weeks ago. There were some impressive piles of snow where they had come down. They were at least 20 feet deep. Up at the mine, there is now a lot of snow. Down in the valley we have less snow than I have ever seen around here in January in the 40 years I have lived here. But there is plenty of snow up higher. Some of the mine buildings are almost buried. I walked with Bella up the main groomed road past the gate. She was annoyed about the leash and refused to walk, so I let her run free since there wasn't anyone else up there skiing or walking. We walked all the way up to the mine, then followed the groomed trails way up above the mine. It was really beautiful because the snow was mostly untouched. There were some ski tracks, but it wasn't heavily tracked like I would expect to see this time of year. It would have been very fast skiing on the groomed trail because it was very hard packed. I wasn't even leaving footprints, although I was careful to stay along the side of the trail, so not to mess up the ski trail. We just had a nice 3-mile workout. I think Bella likely covered ore like 4 miles because she ran up and down, covering a lot more territory than I was doing.