We left the trail head at 9:30 am under high cloudy skies and unsettled weather conditions. There is still a lot of snow on the trail and in the trees above and below the meadow and some in the meadow itself. It will likely be a couple of weeks before most of this snow is gone.

Navigating through the snow up to the meadow

High water in the creek in the meadow necessitated traversing to the southern end of the meadow to find a crossing point.

From there it was 20 minutes of navigating deep snow in the trees until we hit the trail leading to the bench. The upper section of the slopes leading to the bench were mostly snow free and dotted with hundreds of glacier lilies.

Glacier Lily on the upper open slopes below the bench

Once on the bench, we had to cross firm snow until we reached the slope leading up to the top of Little Arethusa.

John crossing the snow on the bench

The upper slope was almost completely bare.

Still piles of snow in Pocaterra Cirque

Heading up the trail on Little Arethusa

By this time the weather gods had smiled on us and the group made the ascent up the long final slope under brilliant blue skies with no wind. We were all on the summit by 11:30 am and settled in for a long lunch and to take in the great views.


Snow on the upper ridge with the summit to the right

Ramblers on the top of Little Arethusa

Enjoying the view and lunch from Little Arethusa

Snowy North face of Storm Mountain

We retraced our steps back down to the bench, but followed a different route back to the meadow.

Phyllis taking the ridge down from the top of Little Arethusa

Ingrid and Bart leaving the top

The treed section also required navigating through significant snow. Close to the trail below the meadow we came across what appeared to be fresh Grizzly tracks.


Fresh Grizzly track below the meadow

We were back at the cars by 2 PM. A great group, with Brian doing his usual share of singing. Thanks to Photini,Phyllis,Brian,Zorica,Gary,Bart,Katrin,John,Ingrid,Toshiko for sharing a great Highwood Pass area hike with me Kevin (C/S) .

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