Sugarbowl Snowshoeing

I finally went snow-shoeing up at Tahoe; the stars aligned, the weather was good, the roads were clear, as was my schedule, and off we went.

We had originally determined that we would drop off my son at Sugarbowl for a back-country training class and then we would go to Royal Gorge, which is right next to Sugarbowl, for snowshoes and trails.

At Sugarbowl, however, we learned that we could rent snowshoes from the resort and use their trails without a trail pass. Since they have about seven kilometers of trails, and since we did Smittle Creek yesterday, and since I'm kind of resting my knees, we decided to go low-key today and just stick at Sugarbowl for snow-shoeing.


We were walkig on a groomed trail for the most part, and we probably didn't actually need snow-shoes on that area since the snow was pretty compacted.

We explored off-trail, however, and then we understood well the benefits of spreading weight distribution as we floated along on the surface of what was actually feet deep snow. It was a great experience to see how it all worked so well.



Another cool part of snow-hiking is the easy visibility of animal tracks--coyotes, mice, other critters. It was neat to see the animal highways that are there year-round yet only visible during snow-time. I had my animal track identifer card with me, so that helped us get a feel for the critter tracks.

Below: Our tracks on the meadow near Royal Gorge trails:


On the groomed trails, we were walking on crunchy snow, so our steps were surprisingly noisy as we crunched along. I think, as with all snow sports, the snowshoeing experience is pretty snow-dependent. Powder would probably have been quite different in terms of sound, I think.

I did notice that the snowshoes, while not exactly heavy, did add some additional weight to each step, and so the guideline that four miles of snowshoeing is like five miles of hiking is pretty accurate. I found the snowshoes worked the front of my ankles in a very different way to hiking; I didn't realize I could get stiff there. :)

Additionally, the weight of the snowshoes can impact the fit of your hiking boots--or at least they pulled the back of my boots back and forth creating a heretofore never experienced hot spot on my heel. Still, a Compeed bandaid solved that problem.


Would I snow-shoe again at Sugarbowl?
Pros:

• The groomed trails worked well for the trip; I was with another novice, and we hadn't snow-shoed before, and we wanted to experiment before going futher afield.
• Easy access to trails and rentals (which were reasonable--$15 and no trail pass costs)
  

Cons:

• The trail is right next to a well-used freight railroad for the most part (or at least the trail we were on), so you didn't get a feeling of isolation which is, for me, part of the hiking/being outside experience.
• The snowshoes seemed rather heavy, but it's possible it may just have been that brand (Tubbs); I need to try a different brand to be sure about this part.
  

So--while I would snowshoe again, I think, I would instead I would try a different brand by renting from REI or somewhere and then perhaps go to a trail such as Castle Pass or Echo Lakes instead of a resort, and get a more isolated experience.

All in all, however, a great beginning to the snowshoe experience.

Weather: bluebird--bright sun, low 50s, little wind.

Stats:
Sugarbowl Trailhead--Tramway--Summer Road---Lincoln Highway--Castle Creek (out and back): 8 kilometers--about 4 miles?