West Granite to Granite Mountain Traverse (*attempt for me)- 1/15/22
We parked along i90 off the side of the west-facing on-ramp and walked to the trailhead for Granite Mountain. The snow has been plowed into the inlet for the parking lot so don't expect much room.
We skinned up to West Granite's western shoulder via Pratt Lake Trail. The trail was great but there's six or so drainage crossings you'll need to dismount skis for.
Skinning up the shoulder, we had several GPS tracks from Peakbagger.com but ultimately did our own thing.
From the ridgeline, you ride the cornice all the way up, and its BIG right now. Unfortunately, I didn't have ski crampons on me that day, and we ended up booting a good 600ft of elevation gain via post-hole. This killed my feet and I bailed at the summit of Tusk O' Granite (aka West Granite).
My friends then used the eastern slope to descend Tusk O' Granite and ascend up Granite Mountain proper. It took them about an hour and 600ft of gain from the saddle. Solid traversing!
I took some advil and kissed my surgery incisions goodbye. Po and I skied off the summit and into the saddle between Tusk O' and Granite. Gorgeous, delicious conditions. It felt like a heavenly ski resort. The way the slopes move and converge was a fun ride, and the trees are easily navigated.
This is because avalanches are so frequent here- we knew not to linger. We ended up skiing left and east onto Granite Mountain rather than going back to Pratt Lake. Caltopo (app) showed us that low angle terrain could be accessed by hitting a series of gateways in the trees. We popped out onto Granite Mountain Trail as the sunset.
Busy day! I'll share the GPS track on Dave Orndorf's post in the PNW Peakbaggers fb page if I don't do a trip report for thedirtbaguette.com
Comments