We headed back to Crystal Mountain for some snowshoeing. Our destination was Henskin Lake.  Henskin Lake is not part of the Crystal Mountain snowshoe trail system however we have been there in the summer many times and knew approximately where to go. This trail is not doable without navigation right now and even with that we got off course a couple of times.
We started at the resort and headed up the TNT Trail. From the top of the TNT Trail we made a right to the end of the Blue Bell Loop. This put us at the edge of the Gold Hills chair lift. We crossed over and, with our navigation and a bit of looking, found the trail. We crossed the little bridge by the old mine, the waterfall is barely visible, and followed some faded old tracks for as far as they went. After the tracks faded completely it was breaking trail through some pretty deep snow. We made it to the split to Henskin Lake and moved about a bit trying to get on the designated navigation trail. We skirted along it mostly but made it to the lake just fine. This trail is mostly tree covered with just a couple of peekaboo views but the lake is open and, though completely snow covered, it was a welcomed place for lunch, rest and to soak up the sunshine. Very peaceful. As we left the lake we tried following an older but visible trail for a bit. We thought it was the main trail from a previous skiier or snowshoer but it started veering away from the main trail on our navigation so we caught back up with the trail we made coming in.
We made it back to the resort fairly quickly. We opted to walk down the Gold Hills lift as it was not running and caught the shuttle back to C lot. We were wiped. It's a pretty fun adventure if you are confident on snow shoes and with navigation. Watch the avalanche forecast and I'd also pack a shovel and be prepared should you have an emergency as you are out of bounds of the resort. If you go in the next few days you should be able to follow our tracks pretty easily.

Followed the Pacific Crest Trail from Chinook Pass past Sheep Lake to Bear Gap, with a short side-trip to the viewpoint above the Crystal Lakes area, and hiked down to the Crystal Mountain base area via Henskin Lake and Silver Creek Trail.

Road Conditions. Paved roads and parking lots. Some construction going on at the Crystal Mountain base area.

Trail Conditions. No obstacles on the Pacific Crest Trail, just a bit dusty in places. The trail down to Henskin Lake had a few blowdowns and was slightly overgrown in places. No issues with Silver Creek Trail. The final half mile in the ski area consisted of ugly, rocky roads, nicer when covered in snow. Surprisingly, both Sheep Lake and Henskin Lake had inlets with running water.

Highlights. Blueberry shrubs had zero berries left, but provided nice fall colors. Spotted (or heard) several pikas.

Crowds. The Sheep Lake parking lot was full at 9:30am, and there was a steady trickle of hikers on the way up to Sheep Lake, and plenty of people up to Sourdough Gap and the Crystal Lakes viewpoint. Only a handful people beyond that.

Today we decided to load the dog in the Jeep and take off on a whim.The newly paved 410 made for a nice drive in just a little over an hour to Crystal Mountain Resort.

Crystal Mountain is undergoing quite a few upgrades at the main area, parking is free and with many open spots during summer. After parking you can purchase gondola tickets for $44 per person. I think the summer gondola only runs one more weekend.

Dogs can ride the gondola with you, on a leash. They cannot go in any of the buildings or outdoors at the restaurant so we prepared with plenty of filtered water and dog food along with dog bags.

We walked around back after disembarking the gondola to the Lucky Shot run which is the newly signed "Crystal Mountain Trail". The trail heads south traversing the rim and then over to Queen's Run and down to Henskin Lake. Henskin Lake makes for a nice spot to lunch but I suggest filtering the water if your dog is drinking from it. This trail finally intersects with the Pacific Crest Trail and is named Silver Creek over Gold Hills to the east.

A lovely 5 miles almost all descent with great views of Rainier to the SW.

Starting from today (01aug2022) - a break from the heat wave (??) 😅 .. early morning i went for a ramble of the "Bear Gap to Bullion Basin" Loop.

~06:15 cool 60s_F, i arrived at the Crystal Mountain Resort, and parked nearby the Mt Rainier Gondola station. ~06:30 went OUT and got back ~11:00 ~mid-70s_F. Just a few vehicles in the parking when i arrived, but was getting full when i got back.

During my ~4+ hours on the Trail, i encountered: ~5 day-hikers, 2 hunters, 5 horseback-riders, and 3 PCT thru-hikers. Had a short conversation with the 3 PCT thru-hikers .. i find them to be amazing .. their perseverance, endurance, strength, .. 👍👍👍 Also, they were very cheery and good spirits {though, they still have (probably) ~1+ week before arriving at the Northern Terminus}. i humbly offered to share my Energy Bars, Water, etc with thenm, but they very politely turned down my offer, said that they were "good". i wished them All the Best and Safe Journey 😄

Btw, the mozzies were terrible .. swarms .. i only had a brief respite for 10 minutes when i was beside Crown Point (probably, because of the breeze) 😅😅😅. And as shown in picture_4, the section of trail (highlighted in Red) was: sandy, loose, and steep.

Happy Trails Everyone 😄

We arrived at CMR around 11am on Saturday, plenty of parking and honestly not as busy as I expected. CMR is under construction (surprise) so expect some chaos when you get to the base area. After a quick stop at the restrooms and to confirm with the gondola operator that they are indeed still over charging (when I was a kid... okay, it was only 2010, the gondi cost $20 to ride, now it is $44, this could turn into a rant but it won't) we got out on the trail. 

The trail head is easily visible from the base area and CMR has done a great job with signage along the way. Past reports had stated there were some confusing crossings and we did not find that to be the case. The first pitch up is probably the hardest half mile and then it mellows out after a while. We played leap frog with another group all the way to lake. 

The approach to the lake is worth admission alone. There is a wonderful meandering stream that escorts you to the water's edge and could probably only be photographed properly from a drone to showcase the full meadow. Too bad drones are banned in this area (for good reason).

I took a dip in the lake while she lounged in the sun. Bugs were noticeable and not awful if you're on the move but sitting too long did yield some bites. We brought bear spray but not bug spray, I don't think they're interchangable. At the lake, we decided to push on to the summit which was only about 2 miles more than going back down and we got to avoid the steep grade in the last ½ mile which always adds some agony to the recovery process, our knees thanked us. Up we went. 

There are several more picture perfect meadows along the way before you cross out into the expanse of the ski area. It was hot but the breeze was nice as we crisscrossed the open slopes. Traffic started to pick up the closer we got to the top. We did run into a family of five who were heading down and I advised them there would be a prize if they found my pocket knife at the lake as I could not find it in my bag or person. If they read this, I'm sorry to inform them it was stuck somewhere randomly in my bag and fell out as I put it on for the last time at the base area much to my surprise. Thanks for looking if you did! Hopefully, it kept the kids engaged for the last 3 miles.

Beers were cold at the top and we hopped the gondola back down for some tacos at the base area. I would do this one again and target a later afternoon/evening start to get the benefit of sunset at the top. Gondola downlift service might be a challenge with the sunset dinner crowd, not sure if they limit capacity to those riders after a certain point.

Observations worth sharing:

• This trail is more like 5 miles or less, definitely not 6. Mapped prior to hiking with ridewithgps.com and from the base area (not parking lot) this was predicted at 2.1 miles. Observed distance was 2.5 miles, either way, not 6 miles as billed. Elevation is spot on.
• There is road construction at various points on hwy 410 and at least one section of flagged one way traffic. This slowed us up a bit but not awful, just dusty.
• While "A" lot parking was still available, we recommend not parking past the bottle neck in the road into A lot. The spots are very tight and if you have a big truck/van/suv, you'll be hard pressed to get out when they box all the cars in around you. We've seen people get stuck before and it isn't pretty. You risk the Austin Powers 80 point turn if you choose to park there; yeah baby, yeah!
• The line to get back on the gondola looked long but it moved quickly. They weren't loading 8 to a car (ours was 4) so in typical CMR fashion they did not maximize their lift potential. Maybe it was for COVID reasons?
• Watch for hikers above if you go to the Summit. There is a trail above the traverse that could drop rocks down on you, very risky as we saw a guy and his dog struggling through the shale. Nothing dropped on us fortunately.