With all the nice weather the last week or so, I’ve wanted to try and get out as much as I can. The beginning of the month was terrible weather so I wasn’t getting my two hikes a week in. I’m hoping this nice weather will help me catch up a bit. After our trip up Burnt Granite on Monday, after a day of recovery, I wanted to do something else. I haven’t hiked Rho Creek in a while and since the snow levels are abnormally low it seemed like a good option. I knew I could get to the trailhead since we drove right past the turnoff for it on Monday. It was a bit lower so I wasn’t expecting a lot of snow – I should have prepared better….

We got to the trailhead, suited up and headed out. When we got there my truck said it was 24 degrees. It was certainly cold. We headed up the trail and one of the first things I noticed was a lot of ice crystals in the tread:

I’m not sure what causes this – maybe moisture in the ground heaving up or something – it is an interesting looking crystal and it was on a lot of the beginning of the trail (where there was no snow).

We continued down the trail until we got to one of my favorite spots – it is an old growth grove that has old blazes in it. I just think it is beautiful:

A bit further down the trail we got close to Rho creek for the first time:

We could hear it pretty much all day long (it was pretty noisy) but much of the time it was out of sight. I also took a short video:

We continued along and soon got to the Tumble Creek crossing. There are 2 or 3 pretty good sized logs across the creek which make good bridges. I crossed on one of them – I had to be careful because there was some snow and ice on part of it – falling off the log wouldn’t be a good day since you are 10+’ above the creek. I crossed on the log and Thor decided to cross the creek – he has crossed the log once but usually crosses the creek – he doesn’t seem to like to cross logs over water for some reason.

After crossing the creek, we continued up – the trail has a pretty continuous grade heading uphill most of the way. After the creek crossing there are a couple of switchbacks going up the hill. We continued up – up until this point there was very little snow anywhere – a few small patches here and there but the trail and the forest floor was basically bare. When we got close to the old cut area things started getting a bit more difficult. There was pretty consistent snow and some of it was soft and fluffy which was easy to walk in, and some was icy. Sometimes we could walk on the icy snow for a bit before we broke thru but it was just a lot harder to walk on the icy stuff. This is what it looked like in the old cut:

A bit further down the trail you get some good views over to the south side of the creek and there was quite a bit of snow over there:

We continued down the trail – it was getting increasingly difficult since I didn’t bring my snowshoes – especially the icy areas. The snow was getting deeper:

A bit farther down the trail I zoomed in on a cool little waterfall on the creek:

It was somewhere in here (I think) where we stopped for lunch – It was lunchtime and I was getting tired and hungry. I saw a small sunny spot so we stopped and were able to have a few minutes of sunshine on the trail. By the time we were done with lunch the sun had moved and we were in the shade again. I was considering making this our turnaround spot but then I looked to see how far Fadeaway Spring was. It was only about a half mile from where we were so I decided we could tough it out to make it there. We packed up after lunch and continued up the trail.

Thor was getting tired too and when he gets tired, he tends to follow me. At the start of a hike, he is always out in front, but after he gets tired he is usually behind me. He started following after lunch and that allowed me to see some undisturbed deer tracks on the trail which was kind of cool:

We continued to fight our way up the trail, fighting the icy spots – we soon came to the creek crossing which feeds Rho Creek – Rho Creek headwaters come from Rho Meadow, but this creek feeds into it – later in the year it is just a trickle but it was pretty wide today:

Past the crossing you head out into the edge of the old cut below the 4672 road – the snow got quite a bit deeper in here:

Along the way I noticed these really cool ice crystals in the snow – they were sparkling in the sunlight:

After fighting thru some pretty deep snow (which wasn’t icy, just deep and very powdery), we finally made it to Fadeaway Spring which was empty as expected:

This spring is the weirdest spring I’ve ever seen – it is opposite of most springs. It is empty in the winter and full in late summer – full of ice cold water – its just really odd. It is well named I think.

While we were there, Thor started plowing his head in the snow and he got snow all over his head – it was pretty comical:

After enjoying the view for a few minutes, we turned around and headed back. I was glad we got to make it to the spring.

On the way back, I had to take a picture of the old post that is the junction with the old Lowe Creek trail:

It is pretty faint but we followed it up a ways several years ago – it kind of gets lost in an old cut about a quarter of a mile up.

We continued to fight our way down – it was a little easier on the way back, partly due to the fact that we’d broken trail on the way up and we were heading downhill most of the way back – BUT – it was still really difficult in those icy areas, even when I tried to step in the same boot prints I used on the way up. Those icy sections were just really difficult. I was looking forward to exiting the old cut area because once we did that, most of the snow would disappear. We finally made it to the east end of the old cut and the snow mostly disappeared and the going was MUCH easier. From that point, we made really good time back to the truck. When we got back to the truck, it said it was 30 degrees – still below freezing. We packed up and headed back. Driving down 4670 was a bit slow due to the snow and ice but we soon made it. I did cut one small tree that was blocking most of the 4671 road – it was kind of a pain to drive around so I just cut it.

It was another fantastic winter day in the woods – I only wish I had brought my snowshoes – we could have kept going I think. It was still a great day out, even though it was shorter than usual.