It was 22 degrees at sunrise so I waited until 11 to get to the trailhead. It was 30 degrees then and I began the climb up the trail, then the Winter Traverse, and finally up the Butte road to the summit. Snow fully covered the road at 2400’ but with service truck tracks in the snow, the climb was doable. I was able to get to the summit for pictures and descend the whole downhill still.

The descent was a cautious challenge but the packed footpath provided enough trail and traction to succeed safely. The front tire slid once in a rut but no crash, just a dab.

Once down to the Winter Traverse, I went back west to the Butte Road to climb again. But this time, once I got to the Stayman Flats intersection, I turned right to descend down towards the south and west and headed towards the Downie Canyon Road and Hwy 97A. That double track is usually great, but today with the melting snow and previous rain on the clay/sand, the top 1-2 inches of the doubletrack soil was thick mud for a mile or two! My bike was loaded with all the mud…everywhere! It was a little frustrating but that’s MTB.

Even so, the excursion was a blast! It was a repeat of the route I did in June of '21. I had just a little more clean up to do when I got back to Everett this time. However, once it was clean, it was like "new bike day".......

The Trailforks ride log and a couple pics for the ride are here. A GoogleEarth 3D aerial view of the ride is imaged below.

The downhill video (a little tentative) is broken up in two parts, Part1  (3min) and Part2 (17min), since I stopped and chatted with a hiker for several minutes. Jump through them as fast as you want.