North Cascades Winter

Taken on a 2015 snowshoeing excursion to Artist's Point, this shows Mount Shuksan from the area above Austin Pass on a day when a lot of new snow had fallen.

This is an area we hike in the summer. The trail to Lake Ann starts near here and goes down into the valley below. The slope in the background is Shuksan Arm, a high ridge that runs west from Mount Shuksan.

I was up snowshoeing with Tim yesterday at Artist's Point but it was mostly cloudy and we saw very little of the surrounding mountains. This is from an earlier snowshoeing excursion when we did see some sunshine.

When we started our trek to Kulshan Ridge and Artist's Point the clouds were moving in and out and we had only occasional sunshine. By the time we finished snowshoeing it was clearing and the sun was shining, as the last photo shows. This photo show some of the mist and another group trekking through the mist.

Another photo from our December trek to Kulshan Ridge and Artist's Point when the mist was still heavy and the sun was trying to break through.

Neither the people in the foreground nor those in the background were part of the group I was with. At this point I was ahead of everyone in our group, but this shows what it was like on our last snowshoeing excursion to Artist's Point. Actually the mist cleared while we were at the top and then again on the way down, but for most of the excursion the mist was part of the scene. It should be mentioned, too, that the people in the background are following in the road to Artist's Point, though closed for the season and buried under many feet of snow.

This was not our group but another group of snowshoers who were following us and who were also headed up to Artist's Point. It's obvious from the photo that it was not very cold but that it was very foggy, though the day later cleared. The mountains in the background are some of the peaks just south of the Canadian border and the trail at this point, such as it was, had flattened out.

The clouds moving in and out and occasional sunshine made our excursion to Artist's Point the est ever. This photo was taken on the way up when the sun was highlighting a few trees in the foreground while the background was still shrouded in mist.

Headed up snowshoeing with Tim this morning. This is from our last snowshoeing excursion December 28th and was taken near where we started. At that point it looked like a gray cloudy day, but as some of the other pictures I've posted have shown it turned out much better.