January 16, 2022 – Mica Peak Snowshoe via mostly California Creek Trail

View Route Details: AllTrails Map of our Route

View WTA Trip Reports: WTA Trip Reports for Mica Peak

Parking Fees: None

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Started out on a gloomy gray skies kind of Sunday morning. We didn’t hurry. No alarm was set and slept in until 7:30 AM. Didn’t get to the trailhead until about 10:20 AM where we were greeted by a completely empty parking lot which was a bit of an ice skating rink. We strapped on our cleats and buckled our snowshoes into our backpacks and set out on the crunchy, ice covered California Creek trail.

Our sloth-like-ness was rewarded with these adorable rays of sun through the lifting fog.

Looking at the contender snowshoeing location for the day: Mount Spokane. Decided on Mica Peak to avoid the crowds and the snow park fee. But also we’ve not snowshoed Mica Peak before so thought it was a good a year as any to try so should someone (like Sara K.) inquire about where Spokane area has good snowshoe locations. Put Mica Peak on the list!

It was so wonderful to get above the thick cloud layer and hike with blue skies all around.

Looking down below made it feel like we were on an island and all of Spokane Valley was under water.

Almost to the top. Took one quick us-ie cause I do love these photos of us popping up over the years in all the places we’ve hiked. (Slanted the photo intentionally. Just. Cause!)

So. About ending up on the wrong trail 3 times over… First was when David misunderstood which way I wanted to connect up to the WTA route. I didn’t want to go the way he started taking us cause the ridge that connects up is narrow and steep and I just didn’t feel like navigating that in snowshoes and having to side hill and all that hassle. Second was when David was like “this is the trail” and I’m like “really? right through groves of larches?” AllTrails app got off course cause of the cloud layer so we just made it our lunch spot and had great views of Mount Spokane. The third time was David swearing that taking the “road-road” back down would be quicker than the trail we came up on. Except. It didn’t. Cause we missed the cutoff. So, our navigation skills were sub par, but our longer than planned adventure was fantastic.

Had we not detoured the third time I wouldn’t have gotten this shot of the Palouse. And also, had I not paused and taken this photo and checked AllTrails we still wouldn’t have known we were going the wrong way.

In taking a hairpin turn back we got another bonus as we ran into two WTA trail workers Kristy and Debb. They let me know that WTA will be doing a winter work party in a week to put up blue diamond markers. That will be totally awesome and will make it THAT much easier to navigate in the winter.