Group Members: Rod Jacobson, Mike Casey & Richard Sale.
We were all anxious to check out the new snowshoeing trails around Swampy Lakes. The trail from the parking lot to the Swampy Lakes Shelter is a clock-wise loop called Porcupine Snowshoe Loop.
We met at my (Rod's) house & then departed at 10:40am. We reached the Swampy Lakes parking lot at around 11am. The temperature was 32 degrees & the wind was light w/ occasional gusts to 25 mph. 30 seconds after hitting the trail @ 11:15am, Mike noticed that we were on the skiing trail, so we backtracked & found the snowshoe trail almost completely covered w/ snow. We followed the blue diamonds for ~1/2 hr. before taking a 5 minute 'adjustment' break. After that we only stopped once to resecure Mike's pad that fell off. Exactly 1 hr. & 2.2 miles after leaving the parking lot, we arrived at the shelter.
There were a pair of skiers just getting ready to head out when we arrived. The shelter saved us from a couple of serious gusts. After refueling for 20 minutes, we readied to head out just as another pair of skiers arrived - they were kind enough to take the group picture of us. I returned the favor.
The trail from the shelter was relatively flat for the next 1.3 miles. At that point we climbed up 350' to the top of a small butte which afforded us something of a view.
After hanging out for 10 minutes to rehydrate & take pictures, we headed down. We were back in the parking lot 20 minutes after that.
In summary: total time on the move - 2.1 hrs., total miles - 4.5, total vert. - ~700'. We plan to do the route to Virginia - Meissner & the burnt down, Nordeen Shelter, next weekend - join us!