We went snowshoeing up Dog Mountain on December 23 with some friends.

The day was beautiful!

It was a bit busy; it was apparent when we showed up the parking was filling up.

Once we parked and geared up we hiked. It was quite pretty out. When we reached the fork in the trail for First Lake and Dog Mountain the signage was a little confusing and caused us to delay for about 5 or 10 minutes while we sorted it out. The signs state to go right for Dog Mountain, but what is not clear is that you are supposed to loop around the lake on the right and veer left.

Once we got past that the snow held up on the trail a while but eventually thinned out and got rocky and full of roots. Not the best snowshoeing conditions – just not enough snow!

The trail was fairly busy throughout. At least most of the fellow hikers were babies and dogs, so we had good company!

We got to the top in roughly 1.5 hours. We ate snacks, basked in the sun, then packed up and headed down.

It took us much less time heading down than up. We finished the return in 50 minutes.

Overall a good day but less than ideal snow on the trail. I don’t think I am excited to return again this season unless we get a lot more snow fall.