MARCH 2201 0133 • VOL 11, ISSUE 3 THANKS TO OUR ADVERTISERS, IT’S STILL…
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NORTHWEST
The Best of the Pacific Northwest!
I
t is March, and winter firmly grips the Cascades. By late winter, a series of cold fronts, like a long line of delivery vans, has relentlessly dumped load after load of snow onto our nearby mountains. The deep snowpack blankets rocks, trees, and bushes. The snow stops seasonal streams, pushes wildlife into the lowlands, and blocks roads. The winter brings activity in the mountains to a halt. It is the perfect time to go camping. To briefly sojourn into snow covered Cascadia is to enter a world of silence. Popular summertime recreation hotspots, now free from the bustle of people, cars, and noise, become sanctuaries of solitude. The perennial, often elusive, goal of backpacking,
BACKGROUND PHOTO:
immersing oneself into nature sans man, is easily attained in winter. The natural cover of snow not only whittles the warm-weather hiking horde down to the hardy fraction willing to venture into the cold, it also, like fresh paint repairing a graffitied wall, masks the roads, trails, signs and other marks of civilization. Even better, take a step off-piste from the small handful of maintained wintertime trails and the forest is completely yours. Nature uncut. The basic skill areas of winter camping are very similiar to those needed for summertime backpacking. A willingness to relearn these skills, in the winter environment, opens
The gentle snow slope of an old lava flow. RIGHT: The easy trails of Wapitia Meadows. platform stomped in the snow makes for a flat and stable place to sleep.
SNOW—cont’d on page 4 LEFT:
A snow cave, one extreme end of snow camping.
CENTER:
A tent