WTA Trail report written by the boys, who joined us:

We are the 'lil Mountain Goats, Terrence (10) and Nathan (13), and we climbed Hex Mountain using snowshoes. This was our second attempt to summit Hex Mountain, and with an early start and good weather, we made it this time.

The road conditions were really good - the road is plowed, and there wasn't any snow on the road until right by where we parked (see previous reports for where to park). The trail was OK - there was snow at the beginning, but then the route up had dirt, mud and ice, so we went off trail in order to stay in the snow, since we'd put our snowshoes on. At the actual trailhead, the snow was much nicer. We probably didn't need snowshoes until towards the very top, and a lot of people who came up after us had no snowshoes, or just micro spikes.

Once you leave the forest and are on the ridge, it was really windy and cold. We had hoods to cover our faces. The trail was very easy to follow and we moved fast to try and get out of the wind and stay warm. At the summit, we did not spend a lot of time there. We had a quick lunch, and the views weren't great because of snow clouds coming in. We could not see the Stuart Range or Mount Rainier. Cle Elum Lake is mostly frozen over and was beautiful.

On the way down we took a different route - the road all the way back, and it was muddy, icy and slippery. We took off our snowshoes at the trailhead, and used our poles to keep our balance - some people might want spikes.

The hardest part of the hike is the final push to the summit, which is steep and it's slippery coming down in snowshoes. Going down on the packed down trail is slippery as well. Most people would probably want to have snowshoes, micro spikes, poles or an ice axe for balance. Be sure to bring plenty of layers, and we used hand warmers, since the wind was really strong and cold.

We left the car at 9:00 am and got back to the car at 2:00. It was nice to get an early start and finish early so we had the afternoon to relax. On this hike, we recommend getting an early start - you can also avoid the crowds. We passed lots of people coming up on our way down - at least a couple of dozen. Thank you for reading!!