Decided to try for Green Mountain today as we wanted to do one more fire lookout trip in the snow and this one seemed more doable in shoulder season as long as we could access the road.
We couldn't find any recent TR and wasn't sure how far we could drive on Suiattle River Rd. To our surprise, the road was snow free all the way to the trailhead and there were no major obstacles on the road except for small blowdowns, potholes, and some small rockfall debris. I think all cars can make it but high clearance vehicles are recommended.
Trail was snow free until we were above 4,400 ft, pretty much after the forest section. Switchbacks were covered in patchy, slushy snow, some were covered in old avalanche debris, and mostly were in springmelt conditions.
We put on spikes not long after that for more comfort, as we did some sidehilling. We switched to snowshoes at around 5,200ft as we started postholing and everything was snow covered. Probably should've kept our spikes as there's a stretch of narrow sidehilling in the forest just before the lake.
After the lake, we generally tried to follow the summer route but there were also old snowshoe tracks that we were able to follow. For the last 200 ft before the summit, we deviated a bit more NE from the old snowshoe tracks, so it was a bit more direct and steep but we also avoided getting too close to the cornice.
Summit view was wonderful with Glacier Peak looking really close. The lookout was closed but we were able to access the viewing area.
On the way down, we were able to glissade down almost to the basin, so it was pretty fun.
Stats: I accidentally paused my GPS, so I believe it's around 8 mi RT, 3K elevation gain, a little over 7 hours total time with a relaxed pace. My additional old GPS watch is wonky so I don't trust its stats haha.
Gears: Spikes, ice axe, helmet, snowshoes (only needed snowshoes for a short period, so you may not need them but they were pretty helpful).
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