Great hike with decent scenery and physical challenge!

We arrived at the trailhead around 10AM and found plenty of parking available. A single outhouse at the trailhead was in decent condition, well-stocked with toilet paper and hand sanitizer, which is always appreciated.

The balcony trail is well-marked and easy to follow, featuring several additional cliff trails to explore. It’s quite rocky, so I was glad to have hiking poles and sturdy boots with ankle support. On the other hand, my trail partner had poles with them but didn't use them. Along the way, we passed a beautiful section with wildflowers in bloom, adding a splash of color to the hike. There are also several wildflowers along the sunnier parts of the trail and on the balcony itself.

The views from the balcony are decent (you look down over I90 and several peaks in the distance); we stopped at the lower/main balcony viewpoint for a sunny lunch break, which was delightful.

On the way back, we explored the first couple of miles of Dirty Harry's Peak. This trail is clearly marked near the top by the balcony and offers a good elevation gain per mile, along with fun creek crossings (definitely will prefer waterproof shoes). Both the balcony and peak trails provide a solid workout and a rich variety of mountain and forest scenery.

2 X P3 === What was I thinking going up P3 twice in a week :)  Last week did the P3/Defiance/Mason loop, so figured it was time to try the harder P3/Web/Dirty-Harry loop.

TL;DR;

• Putrid Pete's Peak ( P3 )
  • Pretty much the same as last week's report ( link at bottom ),
  • Albeit more wildflowers ( the cute little purple/white ones )
• Web Mountain:
  • Fun little side trip from P3, with optional scrambles
  • But skirted the ridge as I was heading onwards...
• Web Mountain to Dirty Harry: 
  • Non-technical, but off trail skills and navigation needed 
  • Quite nice except for brush bashing on the connector ridge
  • Snow coming down from Web Mountain ~ 30% coverage
• Dirty Harry Peak ( DHP ): 
  • My first visit, upper trail is old logging trail
  • Patch of snow on summit, but otherwise snow free
• Parking: 20 cars 9am sunny Thursday, about the same at 5pm
• People: Saw zero souls except just at the very end

Putrid Pete's Peak:

• See last week's trip below,
• But starting to like this trail ( afterwards )
• No marmot today

Web Mountain:

• Traverse can be done with scrambles, or...
  • Skirt just below the crest if in a hurry ( like me today )
• Great views all along

Web Mountain to pond @4322':

• Follow SW ridge down until you can see a path through to the talus
• I was on snow about 30% of the way
  • Which was nicer then the talus, being that steep mid-sized stuff that moves unpredictably
• From there generally followed the descender's left creek ( and some tracks in snow )
  • Approaching the lake, the creek steepens, but it goes ( no cliff )
• Pond was beautiful today, looks like 1 site at the Web Mountain end
  • Bugs were starting though, but toads there to help
  • Guess should call this Upper Upper Granite Creek lake :)

Pond @4322' to Dirty Harry Peak:

• Here you have two choices, take the "unmaintained" trail down, or...
• Follow the "connector" ridge to DH, which is what I was headed for
• The connector ridge looked good on paper, here's what I experienced in rough order: 
• Nice talus, brush, bad brush, very bad brush, nice then really nice granite ridge, nice views down to granite lakes, not to bad forest
• Definitely need to follow your GPS until on the connector ridge proper, else would be easy to funneled down towards granite lakes
• Once I got "above" the main DH trail, worried about more brush, I did a sidling descent to meet the main trail
• Took main DH trail up to peak, just a boring logging track, but nice views on summit

Return:

• From there took DH trail, then
• Ira Spring Connector trail, which was surprisingly pleasant
  • A lesser used/maintained trail, with a choice of balconies.

Long day, but overall a really enjoyable day out in the hills.

I arrived to a very full trailhead parking lot at 11:00 a.m. but lucked out and found one spot. There were dozens of people on the trail, but fewer than I had expected for a holiday. The trail was steeper than I expected, too, but all the rock stairs made for a nice hike to the balcony. It was muddy in a lot of sections, but nothing that would suck a shoe off. Most of the trail is in the forest, and there weren't many wildflowers.

After the balcony, I only saw a handful of people the rest of the day. There were a few wildflowers blooming (trillium, stream violets, bleeding hearts, and paintbrush), but they were few and far between. Salmonberry is starting to flower.

The museum is a quick side jaunt, but underwhelming in my opinion.

After what felt like an eternity, I reached the lingering snowfields. It's only a tenth of a mile or so, and very slushy--no traction needed.

At the summit, I took a few photos of Granite Lake below, and in the time it took me to eat a bar, fog had covered the whole view! Luckily, in the time it took to eat an apple, the clouds blew away.

With both side trips, I went 9.7 miles. 3 hours up, 2 hours down.

I've been up to Dirty Harry's Peak a few times and have wondered about the unmarked "Web Mountain Trail" that takes off from one of the switchbacks.  So today that was the objective; a beautiful pond under Web Mountain.

The trail starts as an obvious, brushy, old logging road.  Abruptly, that ends and it takes off straight uphill but it's pretty easy to follow.  Upon crossing another logging road, I took a bad turn and had to bushwhack back to find the trail again.  I used Gaia and it was essential a few times.

The trail is faint but easy to follow where it is in the dark woods and is really lovely.  It traverses right below some huge talus fields, then gets to a saddle area before turning steeply back uphill.  The final push (in picture) is extremely steep (like Kamikaze trail if you've done that one...).  This is in the trees, so no exposure or scrambling, but you should have poles to help.  But it slacks off and enters the main event - a huge open talus area spotted with perfect subalpine firs and similar trees.  Here we found a couple of cairns to guide us.  We just kept going up the talus and shortly popped over the ridge to reveal the pond.  This is the source of Granite Creek.

We had a nice sit on the rocks here and had some food in the sun.  Tremendous place and worth the effort!  Just make sure you have a gps app and are comfortable finding faint trails.

I hiked up the Dirty Harry Peak trail and first headed to Web Mountain, then returned and visited Dirty Harry Peak.

Dirty Harry Balcony

Even though the forest is not very appealing (dense second growth forest, no big trees, little diversity), the various viewpoints along the way make this section pretty nice. Many wildflowers are already in bloom at these point (notably paintbrush).

Web Mountain

The start of the bootpath to Web Mountain is easy to find. The bootpath is also mostly easy to follow. In dense forest occasionally I had to look around a bit to locate the path but it was never an issue. The dotted track on the Map Builder Overlay of CalTopo is accurate.

When approaching the little tarn the boulder & talus fun starts. The conditions are tricky right now due to thin and partial snow coverage. I probed in front of me and found very deep holes, so I chose to use the snow-free talus where I could, which is a lot more difficult, but at least mostly safe.

Until 5000ft there is still soft wet snow on top. Easy to kick steps, but also a bit slippery. After that the snow got a bit more icy. The last steep section was still 100% snow. I used an ice axe and crampons.

The summit has nice views of Spider Lake and Mount Defiance. Granite Lakes are not visible.

Dirty Harry Peak

There are a few minor snowfields left at the top, but the snow is mostly flat so you do not need traction. The trail is not particularly pretty (most of the route is a wide scar on the mountain), but there are a lot of wildflowers next to the trail that will bloom later (lots of foxglove and beargrass). At the summit, the view down to Granite Lakes is pretty cool.