Granite Mountain — Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026

Beautiful morning up on Granite Mountain. It was fairly warm for an early February Morning, but it did get a bit chilly up near the summit as there was a cold breeze. It's still winter, so good to bring layers. The trail was pretty much snow free up past the avalanche chutes. The chutes were bone dry, which is very surprising for this time of year. Snow was continuous on the trail for the long traverse past the chutes above 4000ft. I put on microspikes shortly thereafter as it was a bit slick in spots. Where the trail turned towards the lookout, there was not a defined bootpath, just a bunch of footprints. Snow was mostly consolidated, but watch out for the occasional posthole. I took the winter route up the ridge, as there wasn't any footprints for the summer route that wraps around the backside. For the most part the snow was consolidated up the ridge to the lookout, but I had to watch out and be careful for the occasional deep hole in the snow. There was a large group heading down off the summit as I was coming up, but other than that, I only ran into a couple more hikers all morning. Started at  6:10am and finished at 10:05am.