Basic Snowshoe - Olallie Lake (winter)

Even a 9am start time found the Pratt Lake TH parking lot nearly full on a Saturday morning. Our party of nine easily followed the well-packed trail up to and a bit beyond the turnoff to Talapus Lake, and then went cross-country down to the lakeshore. For much of the trail, the members of our party variously used boots, microspikes, and snowshoes as per their personal choice.  Really, the trail conditions were quite good for travel just in boots as the top layer of snow offered good traction all on its own.  Snowshoes were quite useful, though, for the off-trail travel down to the lake.

At times the trip was quite cold due to the windchill, and handwarmers were reluctant to heat up. So we wound up keeping to a relatively short lunch break at the lake and scurried back down the trail.