Solo. Got to the end of the seasonally plowed section of O’Toole Road around 0900, noting the ABSOLUTELY no parking in the snowplow turnaround, and carefully tucked my car into the snow bank where they stop plowing. I was the only one there. Overcast skies and temperatures in the mid 30’s.

Walked the .5 or so remaining of the road to the trailhead proper wearing my snowshoes even though the whole width of it was bare booted to all hell. The snow was too greasy for spikes and too soft for me personally to bare boot as it gives me calf pain.

I signed in and start up the trail to Big Crow, again noting that at this point no one before me had been on snowshoes. No biggie since most of it was soft snow and it will also snow this weekend. A couple of solid ice patches. The trail was nice and the last push to the summit was a good climb. I wandered around the summit taking photos and taking note of some fresh snowshoe hare tracks, then headed off the summit in the direction of Little Crow which I could see clearly way, way below me.

The initial descent off Big was sketchy with bare rock and huge post hole footprints from a previous hiker. It’s quite a steep descent but is over quickly and I had no trouble finding the cairn for the second summit. Eager to get my summit beer in and views again, I didn’t linger and headed right back the way I came to hang out on Big Crow for awhile.

Everything within my view was something I have previously climbed which is a really cool feeling.

The descent included some very good butt sliding opportunities which I happily took, and before I knew it I was back on the road and at my car, where 3 other cars had now lined up with mine, though I didn’t see any other hikers today.

My new snowshoes served me well after some adjusting and it was a nice short hike.