Pratt Mountain (snowshoe)
Date: December 30, 2010
Difficulty: 7 out of 10
Distance: 9.5 miles roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 3,200′
Time: 6 to 8 hours
Location: I-90 Exit 47, Washington
Users Group: Hikers & Dogs Only
Permits: Northwest Forest Pass Required
Hiking with: Lance Leasure

With all the snow in the mountains, there are only a few small trails out there without any snow and those trails don’t have much elevation gain or view.  So, if you want to hike a respectable trail, you will need snowshoes.  I wanted to get in one more hike before my holiday was depleted and had the yearning to snowshoe Pratt Mountain.  I picked up my friend Lance Leasure and we stopped at Starbucks on before heading to the Pratt Trailhead at Exit 47.

It was a beautiful sunny day, but very cold for the Puget Sound area, it was a chilly 27 degrees starting off.  The parking lot was filled with snow, but…luckily there was a small area plowed for parking.  We put on our gators, but decided to put the snowshoes on when we really needed them.  The trail started off with 4 to 6 inches of powdered snow and slowly got deeper (http://bit.ly/eC9un0).  About 2 1/2 miles on the Pratt Lake trail we decided it was time for the snowshoes.  Even with snowshoes, we were still sinking down over 2 feet.  Running out of time, we turned back approximately 3.1 miles from the trailhead ( right before the view point of Olallie Lake).  Even though we didn’t summit Pratt, there will be plenty of snow this season to attempt it again in snowshoes for the next 4 months.