Silvercrest, Dec. 13, 2015

New Trail on Silvercrest Provides Longer Snowshoe

The snow was deep; the snow was fluffy; the sky was snowy and then sunny; and the new trail was fun! That about sums up our day at Silvercrest on the new five-mile loop, of which we covered three miles.

We owe a special thanks to Gerry and Camille for their work on clearing and plotting out this new trail and marking it well with pink ribbons.  Besides one wrong turn and one wrong guess, the trail was easy to follow as the pink stood out well on the trees and there were plenty of ribbons.

We did get some good exercise as we had to break trail; and since the snow was still rather skimpy, the deadfall provided an obstacle course, which gave the newbies a chance to get to know their snowshoes better.

At first, we were the only ones in the parking lot and on the trail, but then we ran into a pair of skiers and then two snowshoers, one of whom we recognized as a former employee of GFPS tech department.

We were disappointed at the end of the day when we saw numerous cars of families, all getting Christmas trees, which they aren't supposed to do in the Silvercrest area.  They were trampling down the ski trail, even when we requested they not walk on the ski tracks.

We started the day at 8 a.m. and got back to Great Falls at 1:30 p.m., in plenty of time to change and clean up for our holiday get-together.  It was so fun visiting with everyone, and all of the gals enjoyed the Mile, Mile and  a Half movie about hiking the JMT (John Muir Trail) section of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail). We had 21 gals at the party, but not everyone stayed for the movie. A special thanks to Gail for telling us about this wonderful show.

And a special thanks to all of the gals from Katie for the wonderful gift of a certificate to Big Horn. Katie plans to purchase a Thule car topper, so that we can store our gear, packs, snowshoes/skis and travel more comfortably in her new Traverse.

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