June 17 - Granite Mountain

Friday, June 17th, 2011 at Granite Mountain
Just after I got home from my not too difficult hike at Twin Falls State Park, Robert Smith called and wanted to climb tomorrow, and to do Granite Mountain rather than Mt Si.  That sounded great to me, so I got my gaiters and ice axe out, and picked up a couple of pair of nylon pant shells.  I met Robert at 9am at North Bend, and we stopped at the Ranger Station where I got a parking pass, and we drove off to the trail head off exit 47 of I90.  We put on our packs, and headed off up the trail. We got to the fork where the trail split between Pratt Lake and Granite Mountain.

 This was about a half hour up the trail. Now to show the difference between the main trail and the Granite Mountain trail, first here is the main trail, smooth, easy and wide.

Now here is the trail up to Granite Mountain. And yes it is as rough as it looks, and worse.

So we hiked up and up on the rough and rocky trail. Here's Robert.

We broke out into the first avalanche chute, which without snow is covered with brush.

Then we went into the woods again, and could see snow thrugh the trees.  Note how steep the snow is, about 45 degrees.  I just using my cellphone camera, so the snow flares but you still get the picture.

Then we broke out onto the snow in the second avalanche chute, which was full of snow. Here is a picture looking up, which is way steeper and higher than it looks.

And here is another one looking down, which again was way steeper and further down than it looks.

Bottom line was that it was just too spooky for us to continue. I have years of mountain climbing experience, and probably could have continued, but without a safe runout, it was no place for Robert to be learning ice axe arrest.  We need a safe slope with a safe flat runout.  So I demonstrated a few snow travel techniques on the snow, a bit of traversing, ice ax arrest and glissading, and then we called it a day, and headed on back down. Due to the steepness and rockyness of the trail, even though we only did about 2000' elevation gain, Robert said it felt as difficult to him as Mt Si at 3500' elevation gain. Here is a picture of Granite Mountain taken in summer. We did the yellow part, but not the red part. The upper part of the mountain that has no trees was all covered with snow when we were there.  Also, the second avalanche chute, where the yellow line stops, was also full of snow, both above and below us.

So we feel we did a good job, and are happy with the outing. We were really bushed when we got back, and shared a cool brew at the cars before we headed home. Our next outing is planned in about a week, to do Mt Si itself.  Finally :).