I've been wanting to snowshoe up Tumalo for a long time, and finally got the chance. My buddy Jason from SoCal came up to visit us, and we were hoping to get some good views of Mt Bachelor, Broken Top and South Sister from the summit.

The drive up Cascade Lakes Highway was pretty smooth. Not much traffic on a Tuesday morning. Plenty of parking at Dutchman Flats Sno-Park, too.

The normal hiking trail is not marked, so we headed basically straight toward the summit following the tracks of other snowshoers and uphill skiers. We had snowshoes, and the conditions were perfect. The snow is deep, but the trail had been broken and the freeze/thaw cycle meant that the surface was firm and easy to grip.

We had some glimpses of Batchelor on the way up, but the summit itself was in the clouds. We couldn't see more than 50 feet. Not a great day for photography, but it was still fun to get out. And it would be really easy to get disoriented and head in the wrong direction, even with the tracks in the snow. We didn't need it, but we had recorded our route in GaiaGPS so if it came to it, we'd be able to easily navigate back to the trailhead.

We saw a few other folks preparing to backcountry ski and a few other snowshoers on our way back down. Again as we descended, we had a few glimpses of Mt Bachelor, but other than that, it was views of the snow-covered trees around us.

Afterwards, we had lunch at Silver Moon Brewing. A lunch well-earned. 😉

My first peak of the 2019 challenge is complete!