Cedar Falls Snowshoe — Sunday, Feb. 14, 2021

Walked to trailhead from end of road (about 3 miles). No tracks on the side road to the trailhead so it's been at least a few days since anybody tried this. I downloaded the relevant maps to ViewRanger, which I would say is essential (or comparable app) if there are no tracks to follow on trail. There was at least a foot of new snow on the trail, so it wasn't always obvious where it was. About 0.5 miles in, we encountered quite a few large downed trees at the edge of a large (at least 50 ft tall) mound of snow. It appears there may have been an avalanche here recently which has covered the trail. The topo map I was following showed no such hill. We decided to try to get around, through, or over the obstacles, which proved very difficult given the number of downed trees, the deep snow (we were using backcountry snowshoes), and the very steep slope. After about 30 minutes of hard effort, we sort of made it to the other side and reacquired the trail, at least according to the GPS and the map. However, we still found ourselves on a rather steep sideslope that in no way resembled a trail. Afraid of encountering even more difficult terrain ahead, we turned around, which proved just as difficult as the way in. The trail may be over there somewhere and passable, but it will take a significant effort to find it.