New Years Day

We went up to Mirror Lake on Mt. Hood to do some snowshoeing today.  The hike was billed as an easy one.  I thought otherwise.  We basically had to climb about 1000 feet from 3500 to 4500 feet.  Don't get me wrong though the view was worth the effort.  Although I couldn't help think as we walked along the trail and switchbacks that it would make a kick ass mountain bike trail!  With studded tires I think I could've had a go at it too.  It took us about 2:15 round trip to do the hike.

Afterwards we hit up the Mt. Hood brewery for some food and drink.  Man what a surprise.  They had good beer and great food.  I did the burger and vegetarian chili but next time I'm doing their pizza.  All the stuff is homemade.  A couple next to us ordered dessert and that looked awesome too...  The traffic was a little busy coming down off the mountain because of the 3-day holiday weekend.

Check out the mountain stream, with waterfall, right next to where we parked!  (the picture does it no justice)

Pretty pacific northwest girl...

The trail was basically cut into the side of the mountain.

Check out these switchbacks... memories of some 12 hour races come to my mind...

The view from the top.  I ran out of batteries...  There's still more climbing if you want but we finished up with a loop of Mirror Lake and a quick descent.

Good way to spend New Years Day.  Hope yours was good too.

Later