Bandera Mountain, Ira Spring Trail - Mason Lake — Sunday, May. 9, 2010

Snoqualmie Region > North Bend Area

Got started at 10am on a beautiful sunny day. First section of trail was very dry with no mud anywhere, after the first 1.5 or 2 mi started to encounter snow. Snow is constant on the trail for about a half mile before trail splits to either go up Bandera or around to Mason lake. We headed up to Bandera with lots of snow on the hill. Snow was firm at this time, about 1130am, and some rocks and grasses starting to poke through. No postholing. We made this ascent with hiking boots and poles, but a set of crampons or snowshoes would really have been nice. Upon reaching the ridge and turning towards the peak, we found full snow coverage. This was really territory for ice axe, snowshoes, etc, but we persevered. We made the "false summit", and due to continuing heavy snow conditions to the official summit along a narrow snowy ridge, we decided to go no further. Ice axe and traction footing strongly recommended beyond this point. After lunch we headed back down, and found the snow softening up quite a bit by 1230. Postholing became somewhat problematic on the steep descent through softer snow, but our boots came out really clean :) BE CAREFUL and carry an axe if you do this hike in the next few weeks!