Today's plan was to spend the day hiking with Allison and use my snowshoes to stomp down a nice packed trail. We started around 11am up the Gregory Canyon Trail, where I put the snowshoes on at the second wood bridge. There had been enough traffic through here that using the snowshoes helped pack the trail a bit, but were mostly a formality. Above the ranger cabin, footprints quickly diminished, until the Greenman/Ranger junction, where there eventually were Kraig's post hole tracks from yesterday and his fresh footprints from this morning in his old tracks. I made deliberate and forceful small steps, pounding down the snow the best I could, making several passes in spots and widening where necessary. Higher on the ridge, I was amazed at how much snow there was and the depth and placement of the snow drifts, as the most recent storm blew in from the North. The snow got so deep, I could tell that Kraig had been struggling his last two trips, must have been an epic battle, as evidenced by his "sack tracks".
We eventually made the top and took a very long break on the summit rock before heading back down. I was able to admire my handiwork on the descent and further pack the trail with even better affect with more forceful downhill impact (though I ate it a couple of times getting caught up in my snowshoes) and warmer temps to pack the snow.
Planning on taking advantage of my handiwork tomorrow with a few laps.
