Garfield 2/25/2017

Use the Garfield and Garfield Ridge Trails.

Was 51 degrees at the start of the hike and over 40 at the summit fortunately no rain. He hiked mostly in tee shirts, needed our rain shells because of winds at the summit.

The end of the Gale River Loop road has not been plowed so needed to park at 5 Corners. The Gale River Loop road was snow packed and very uneven, was easiest to do in show shoes.

The first mile of the trail alternated between bare ground and slick ice. The water crossing were high so we took the bushwhack, which as uneventfully easy.

The remainder of the trail had good snow cover, but was understandably soft and had bare patches where there was running water, we used snowshoes to try to preserve the trail and smooth out some of the post holes.

Clouded up after about 3800 feet and no views at the summit, but all in all a very nice hike. Only saw one other hiker all day.

It seems to make sense to tag on here with Sunday conditions (sorry to hijack your post.) Large parking area plowed at the west/south end of GRR, you do have to drive over a small snow hump but a Prius made it, no need to park at Five Corners, room for ten cars if people park carefully. Spikes car-to-car including the road. The third crossing has a good snow bridge but of course you can't see that on the way up until you've made the cross/bypass decision; first and second would require creative rock-hopping at best. We did both bypasses on the way up and used the snow bridge on the way down (i.e. doing just the lower bypass, which is very easy.)