Caribou Hill

After doing a difficult hike last weekend, we decided to do something a little easier. The hike to Caribou Hill (and onto Klondike Mountain) has been on our hike list for a few years. But we've never attempted it before today because of the relatively easy distance (less than 4 miles) and barely 1,000 feet of elevation gain.

We didn't know what to expect starting this hike. No one had reviewed this hike in several months, so we didn't know how busy it would be or how packed the trail would be. When we got to the trailhead, we quickly realized this is a popular cross-country skiing area with dozens of people skiing around us. However, the Caribou Hill area has rolling hills where people can spread out which may be the reason it's popular for that activity. Because of this, we didn't encounter many people despite barely finding parking.

The one annoying thing about this hike was the amount of snow. There were some spots that were completely dry dirt and other areas where the snow would come up to your thighs if you weren't wearing snowshoes. That meant that we were constantly putting on or taking off our snowshoes to cross a section of either dirt or deep snow.

There really was no defined trail since everyone skied wherever. That made this hike a little more fun because we were making our own path and hiking wherever we wanted to. In certain parts of the forest, I hate this, but Caribou Hill didn't have many trees or large boulders so it was easy to follow elevation lines without running into something you couldn't pass.

All things considered, this was a really short hike that gave us some gorgeous views with a fun wandering make-it-up-as-you-go hike.