I was hoping to do Mt Mitchell tomorrow and when talking to an REI employee this afternoon I was told "oh that'll be covered in snow, enjoy your day snowshoeing".  I've never been snowshoeing and though I'd like to try it I don't intend to start tomorrow :-) Does anybody know if the trails on the mountain and roads to it are clear/accessible? If not any suggestions on somewhere in the St Helens region for a good hike? It's an area I haven't been to yet.

Thanks

Hello,

Just got home from Mt. Mitchell. It was incredible! We broke a trail through a lot of the snow.  It is doable. server giving me huge issues now. can't write a lot   

Just keep following the footprints and basically for a large portion once the snow starts (mid way up the trail) the trail stays level through the snow until towards the end, near the southeast and southern part of the mountain, before climbing a lot. Eventually there is a point where the trees opened up a lot and the snow depth probably increased to 6-8 foot?  here we apparently left the trail and just went up through the trees until the snow disappeared higher up and we hit the trail again for the final 1/5 of a mile to the top. 

there was absolutely NO rhyme or reason that I could scientifically understand why snow was in certain locations and not in others (north side having less than the south side, open areas with more snow pack than covered parts of trail (okay so that one makes a tad more sense... even though the sun hits the open areas much more?..))

It is totally do-able but takes some observation skills and some balance.  We never felt at 'risk' though by continuing on the 'trail' once we hit lots of snow. There were portions where there was no snow and you could see leveled, packed ground that was obvious trail and thus you knew you were on the right trail.  We're a mid-20's couple who has not hiked in snow or very much yet here in the NW-so it was some adventure/exploration since it was early in the day and the trail is not that long.  We passed up an older ~45-55 couple who had arrived at the same time as us early this morning

we didn't go to the top right away but ate our lunch on open area on the south side above the snow line-and soon enough saw them which was quite a surprise - they had followed our footprints and didn't have poles (Which helped a lot on the snow that is 'slanted' on the trail.  So with safety (and maybe a false sense of security) in numbers, the 4 of us cut diagonally through rock, then tussles of grass, and finally hit the upper portion of the trail that climbed to the peak.  We made a few small rock cairns in the rocky area to help us in finding our way back down.

On our way down we saw a group of 4 people and 3 dogs, including a tiny pomeranian which surprised me.  Then we saw a guy heading up as well, a while after that bigger group.  Its a 'challenge' but I think it will continue to get better so long as the snow doesn't turn mushy from top to bottom (which im not sure if a 6 foot column of snow does..) As a post from a month ago mentioned (they turned around even with snow shoes), there is a lot of debris on the trail and I'm not sure snow shoes would help much.

 The roads there were FINE - but certainly had large rocks/potholes for the final 4 miles.

sorry but the server is on crack right now!