Granite Lakes Trail — Thursday, Apr. 24, 2008

Late April with the avalanche warnings still at considerable, we were back to Granite Lakes trail, a nice safe trail for such conditions. The logging road is clear of snow for at least 2 miles now, the snow starting around 1800' just before the road crosses the creek. We put on snow shoes once we'd crossed the creek. We were the first people up the trail since the last snows fell and so we were breaking trail the whole way up. Hard work with he heavy snow. There are 3 places where side creeks have left breaks in the solid snow, one involves climbing down and up about 6' of very steep snow. Another has a delicate snow bridge for now. There was an amazing selection of snow prints from rabbits, squirrels and coyote. After we had forked off to the lakes we heard a full scale howl and then some barks from the coyote, and his foot prints became very fresh.