My friends and I went on this trip in Late February, 2006- We rallied the troops for an overnight snowshoe trip to Crater Lake, an alpine lake at 9000 feet just east of Kirkwood Ski Resort. It snowed a few inches that night, and got down to 20 degrees F! (-5 C). It was a trip that was filled with my incessant bitching about the cold and how miserable backpacking in the snow is. Of course, after it was over- I loved it! We made a fire in the snow that burned 3 feet deep by morning, a fire that made the night pleasant and magical. The aspens and firs surrounding camp were magical. It was totally silent, a forecast for a light storm kept others away. The next morning we were greeted with snowmobiles-someone called
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