With the week's snowfall we were looking forward to snowshoeing up new snow. We found the Single Vehicle Only parking on the left just after the second fire station past Roslyn, and the yellow gate just up the highway on a right turn. The Conservancy sign was out of sight up the road, but there was no other yellow gate when we looked further up the highway.
It was 9:30 when we left the car. There were no others, just a lot of snowmobilers hauling up the highway. Two of the logging road spurs were labeled with cairns at the junction which was not useful; we moved both cairns to the side of the correct road! We crossed little snow at first. The Hex Mountain trail was clearly marked. When it steepened and snow became continuous we put on spikes. We followed clear boot and snowshoe prints probably made the day before, so did not need our snowshoes for the ascent. The weather was mostly overcast and we hoped to summit before it got socked in.
Instead the sun came out and warmed us at the summit as we ate lunch! We had considered descending to the east and making a loop. However the snow was corniced, the light conditions made it difficult to assess a safe route across the first ridge which was both narrow and steep on both sides, and none of us were carrying ice axes or helmets. So we decided to return the way we came. On the descent we made good use of the new snow and our snowshoes by plunge stepping down. It snowed prettily between episodes of sunshine. We had the mountain to ourselves all day.
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