Gold Mint Trail

 There is a lot of snow in the mountains right now, but I wasn't sure how low the snow level was. I decided to drive up to Hatcher Pass and see how quickly I ran into snow. I was surprised to see that Archangel Road is still open. But soon after that there is snow along the side of the road. The road over the pass is closed and so is the road up to Independence Mine. It was really cold and windy, so I decided not to hike around up by the mine. I drove down to the Gold Mint Trail and hiked in 2 miles with Bella. The first mile of the trail is a little wet and there were a few small patches of wet snow along the edges. But after the first mile, I started finding large sections of snow on the trail itself.  There have been some nice improvements to the trail, with nice wood walks covering some of the most notorious wet areas. But we still had to cross some very wet places. It was getting very late in the day, and the trail was now mostly wet snow, so I turned back at the 2-mile marker. It also looked like rain was on its way. Bella was once again, a muddy mess so we went home and she got another bath. It won't be long before the whole area will be ready for skiing.