I'm surprised the description says 'infrequently visited' but maybe it's the 12-mile distance. I parked on the wide shoulder on the east side of the road a mile and a half past Camp Sheppard. There's a short spur that takes you to the White River Trail and trail sign. It's 1/4 mile to the Little Ranger Peak Trail and you can do an easy 6-mile round-trip to the viewpoint and back like me if that's more within your wheelhouse. The best part was Buck Creek Trail parking was packed while I saw no one.

The trail is an easy grade with long switchbacks that led through some of the most magnificent trees I've seen in a while. Snow started around 3200 ft. and became continuous around 3600 ft. It was soft snow and never more than 2-4 inches. Traction was not necessary, and I gave my back a break by leaving my poles in my pack as well.

Lots of deer tracks on the trail and what appeared to be fairly recent bear prints around the lookout. From the top viewpoint there's a rib with sharp drop-offs that led to a lower viewpoint with views of Mutton Mountain and High Dalles Point. I took my pack off, climbed over the top knob and scooted down on my fanny, but easily climbed back up. Proceed with caution though if you decide to do it. The hand and foot holds weren't big. I also checked out the ridge running west, but the views didn't improve, and I wasn't about to climb the outcrop there. Great day to be outside.

Started from the Palisades trailhead as roughly the 15th vehicle around 10:00am.

Palisades Trail

The Palisades trail was in good condition as I went up and left at the junction with the White River trail to continue climbing past the waterfalls. Very shallow, intermittent snow started around the creek crossing at the top of the falls (~3300ft), eventually becoming the common trail surface shortly before the second approach to the cliff edge around 3600ft. Note that generally the 30ft nearest the cliff face halve already melted out. I saw probably half a dozen downed trees on this trail and nearly all of them were before this point.

The snow was consistently 2-4 inches deep from this point to the viewpoints just above 4000ft. From here, the snow increased to 6-12inches deep (deepest in the more open stretches of the trail) such that taller boots or gaiters would be recommended to keep snow out of socks until reaching the viewpoint at 4400ft. Again, there was very little snow on the 10ft nearest the cliff edge.

Starting from this point, I began to notice intermittent westbound (opposite my travel) cougar prints from the last 12 hours or so mixed in with the many deer prints and single set of hiker + dog still in front of me. I finally caught up with the hiker who had been breaking trail / route finding at the final viewpoint around 4800ft. 

After eating some lunch, I continued on my way and quickly encountered the 2-4ft deep snow the lead hiker had warned me about, so I donned my snowshoes and began my turn at route finding. Using a general plan of finding the wider straight paths through the trees and cross-checking with the map on my handheld GPS, I successfully navigated the switchbacks and initial traverse to the ridgecrest around 5000ft.

From here, there were few, if any, signs of the trail route so I simply followed the ridge-crest through the black stick forest, making a wrong turn here or there to go around the wrong side of a bump on the ridge. I know that I wasn't following the exact trail as I never saw the large sign describing the Palisades trail that was present a couple years ago. From previous trips, I knew that the trail would pass within feet of the old shelter site, so I used that as my next known-good point on the trail, hoping that the snow would be melted again as I started to drop off the ridge.

Ranger Creek Trail

DO NOT FOLLOW MY SNOWSHOE PRINTS in the upper-most switchback basin (4600ft to the saddle). Unfortunately, my hope for less snow on this trail was a pipe dream. In fact, the trail was nearly impossible to locate as the hillside began dropping into the creek drainage. While I started down the trail, the hillside was steep enough that chunks of ice/snow from the size of a fist to the size of a 3-liter water bladder would fall from trees or simply start sliding down the very slushy hillside that was covered in approximate 2 feet of snow. I really should have checked avalanche conditions from NWAC before the trip, and likely turned around here for safety. Rather than crossing and re-crossing the visible flowing creek in the gulley, I instead opted to very carefully directly descend the hillside in my snowshoes, often using a trekking pole as a stop to keep from accidentally skidding down the hill.

As I crisscrossed the trail on my GPS, I descended too low, trying to get around the rock outcropping on the south side of the drainage. Upon reaching the bottom of the visible basin (4450ft), I heard the creek roaring around the corner, so I worked my way slowly back up to a few feet above the rock outcropping, where I finally saw and rejoined the trail at 4600ft.

Thankfully, I could now see the trail cut and boot prints that followed it, improving my pace, but still maintain caution on the extra sloppy snow. Between 4400ft and 4150ft I shed my snowshoes and shortly thereafter my gaiters as the trail was starting to regularly return to dirt in places. In the vicinity of the viewpoint junction around 3900ft I saw yet a couple more cougar prints in the ever thinning snow.

The descent from here to the junction with the White River Trail at 2750ft was a welcome stretch of easy trail. It also appears that someone has already cleared the fallen trees from this section of trail. Thank you!

White River Trail

This trail is generally dry and in good shape with nearly every junction properly signed, and easy walking after the rest of my trip. There were one or two bugs on this section of trail and it was certainly warmer, so spring/summer is clearly on its way down here.

After continuing to take the White River Trail (not the Snoquera loop, or other side trails), I had returned to the junction with the Palisades trail, and descended to the car, arriving around 4:40pm.

All told, approximately 14.4 miles (including roughly 2.5-3mi in snowshoes) in 6:40 made for a tiring day. Additionally, even though the mountain was out on my drive to the trailhead and on my drive home, it was blocked by clouds from every viewpoint I reached.

Update: Beware of ticks! I found couple ticks, 2 days after this hike, including one on my forearm. My hiking buddy found a tick when he got home. He found three more around his house with one on his back! Yuk!

Got to the Palisades trailhead by 9:30 am. Second car in the parking lot. Two more cars came in as we started hiking. Foggy morning and turned out nice before noon. Saw a couple and a dog on the way up and a lady on the way down. A quiet day on the trail.

It was nice listening to the sound of Dalles Creek. The first Dalles Creek crossing at 0.4 mile. No bridge but some stones which were easy to cross without getting wet. Plenty of water at the Lower Dalles Creek Falls. Several downed trees and needed to climb over couple of them.

Snow section after the second view point. We used micro-spikes to be safe. We stayed on the trail and was not hard to go up Little Ranger Peak. Got to top by 12:30 pm and able to see Mt. Rainier and the surrounding mountains. We added our names to a small paper inside the register. Next person to Little Ranger Peak: please bring some more papers for the register.

My hiking buddy found a tick crawled out of his hiking pants next morning! We should have checked for tick right after the hike!

AllTrails indicated 13 miles with 3009 feet elevation gain.

Parked at camp shepherd, hiked the whiteriver trail to the start of the palisades trail.

Trail was in great condition all the way up the palisades, snow before the last lookout. Spikes needed.

Watched mountain goats below.

Continued to little ranger peak, deep snow, up to my waste in sections. Snowshoes would help.

Going down the little ranger steep switchbacks was hard, steep frozen snow and ice. Used spikes, crampons would have been helpful. Trail isn't hard to follow. Lots of blowdown after the snow sections.

Continued whiteriver trail to camp shepherd.

Over 15 miles and 7 hours. Rain, snow, thunder, lightning.

Amazing hike.

We thought we'd see how far up we could get today, Dalles Ridge being a sort of pipe dream (without the pipe). The upshot: we got 8 switchbacks, or about one mile, beyond the Little Ranger Peak viewpoint. Along that particular switchback (see pic), the snow and the angle of the trail led us to decide that that was our turnaround point. We could have made it up to the junction with Palisades, I'm sure, but it didn't seem worth it to us--too much work just to eat lunch in the snow and still be a mile or so below Dalles Ridge. Plus, we started late, so time was a factor, as well. Following is our route and some trail specifics.

We parked at Camp Sheppard, where there's a big lot and toilet facilities (which are decent and stocked). Here, we took the White River trail 2 miles to the Little Ranger Peak (LRP) trail. Between that TH and the viewpoint 2.5 mies up, there are several blowdowns, all step-overable except one. With the exceptional one, there's a little trail that cuts to the next switchback. No snow up to the viewpoint, and the viewpoint is lovely. We had lunch there in the warm sun. From the viewpoint, we hiked up. The trail is intermittently snowy starting around the third switchback. We put spikes on along the sixth switchback--they were handy, for sure, and I'm sure we would've worn them all the way up if we'd gone that far. The snow was not terribly deep (maybe five inches at the eighth switchback), but slippery because it was in the process of melting, and the trail, at least in many places, is angled downhill and also had plenty of rocks and roots underneath, which get pretty slippery in the right conditions. We turned around when the trail crossed a minor avalanche field (which was not dangerous, just a fact) and we decided it wasn't worth it to continue trudging along. If we'd left earlier, I think we might've pursued it. It does appear that considerable snow fell over the last week or so . . . So, we headed back down to the sunny ledge and basked like turtles in the sun till heading back down.

Special features: this trail has quite the collection of Pacific Yew trees, especially just as you leave the viewpoint and start heading up to Dalles. You can tell them by their red bark and straggly appearance. The forest in general has some really nice old growth trees, though the best are right  out of the Camp Sheppard parking lot--HUGE, beautiful old growth trees, a large stand of them. This afternoon, we could definitely feel spring: lots of birds chirping,and the salal and Oregon grape bushes fluffing out. Lovely day. RT was 11 miles or so. Happy hiking, Everyone!