Beautiful day for hike up Granite. Started at 8:00, summited at 10:30, stayed a half hour and was back at the car by 1:00. Spiders are laying out their sticky filaments across the paths but no bugs to speak of yet. Trail is dry and clear. One small erosion patch past the Alpine Lakes sign at about 3600 feet. Minor snow patches at 4500 feet and it's all snow at 4800 feet where the trail enters the first bowl. Not many tracks up through the series of bowls behind the ridge. Most footprints up the spine of the ridge to the lookout. Getting dangerous on that snow. The cornices are weakening and the undercut from melt next to the rocks is getting thin. Several times I opted for a rock scramble instead of trusting the narrow ridge of snow. Best early in the morning while it is still frozen. By 10 am on a sunny day it is getting slushy and slippery. Outstanding views of snow capped mountains all around at the summit. I got up there with ordinary hiking boots and poles. Wish I had gaiters.

Snow patches start to cover the trail where the trial hits the lower ridge. The footing can be a little tricky in these patches, as the snow melts out between rocks and raises the chance of your foot plunging through. I would guess that the snow cover is not continuous until about 600-800 feet below the top. Saturday was gorgeous in Seattle, but the morning clouds piled up at Snoqualmie. For a period the sky would be blue, then the clouds would rise up and it would snow, then the skies would clear again. It was probably better later in the day. I met a party of four who had gotten up at 2:00 am and tried to get to the summit for sunrise, only to be met with cloudrise. Great idea though. A few short glissades can be made from the ridge, but the snows have left the west side rather early. It could be a difficult year for foresters, fishermen, and hydroelectricity providers. Northern California must be getting a little anxious. ""Fat Boy"" and ""Death Star"" may be poised for another visit. Tex

Left the trailhead at 9:15 with clouds and sunbreaks. The trail is wet with snow on the upper 800-1000 vft. The snow is rather unconsolidated and mushy, but even though I brought snowshoes, I did not need them. The south bowl is almost completely melted out, the west bowl has about 50% coverage, and anything north facing is still under alot of snow. Made the summit at around 11:30. Light snow was falling for about 1 hour from 5000 feet up. No accumulation. Several of the large cornices at the summit are starting to go, so be careful near them.

Almost seemed like early summer along the lower 2/3 of the trail with warm sunny skies and hardly any snow to notice. Big clue that it really wasn't quite summer were the trilliums as they gasped their last breaths. Beyond the 3/4 point - as you start to head in the direction of the look out (see picture) - the trail cowered beneath solid snow. In the early morning it was solid, frozen, hard snow (based on other trail reports, the snow becomes much more comfy and stompable later in the day). Since I left my poles sleeping in their closet, I chose to go only a short distance across the snow - far enough for a few quick glissades on the way down. Saw only three other hikers on the trail - all of whom must have started soon after I had. Didn't see anyone else until I was back in the parking lot at 10 AM.

We left the parking lot at about 5:15pm in surprisingly good weather. Two days earlier the weather guys predict a 4000' freezing level, clouds and precipitation, but that's spring. We saw very little snow the south face of Granite from the road, and the first 2500' of gain are snow-free. We hit consistent snow at the eastern most part of the trail (where you start heading west again) and then cruised on well-consolidated snow the rest of the way. The left side of the east ridge was exposed rock, but the snow on the right side was perfect for step-kicking and so we took the direct line up the east ridge. We reached the top under amazingly clear skies at about 7:10. The lookout had all the shutters open, although we didn't see anybody in residence. We sipped hot tea and enjoyed the views. Kaleetan looks to be in good shape and Thompson appeared to be snow-free. Great plunge-stepping on the way down, so don't forget your gaitors. The snow on the east ridge won't last more than another week or two, so this will probably be the last weekend to do the east ridge on good snow.