After trying to get up Wednesday morning to Granite Mountain for the sunrise and running into wet loose avy conditions, I figured I'd try a different go of things this time: Pratt Lake trail to West Granite Mountain (aka "Tusk O'Granite), then time and energy permitting, pull off the traverse and summit Granite Mountain. I definitely did all of this, but it was a lot more involved due to some unexpected conditions that I probably should have anticipated given the recent weather reports.

Got to the trailhead around 11:30. There were a surprising number of cars there for 11:30 (about 25-30), but I guessed that most folks were doing lower elevation hiking, cross country skiing, or maybe heading up towards Ollalie Lake.

I cleaned up the brush/trees that were obstructing the trail in the first tenth of a mile as best I could (there's a 6" diameter tree that still needs to be logged out and there's a 6" diameter log that I cut in two that needs to be completely removed from the trail). I got successful feedback from trail users who walked through the trail instead of off to the sides (yay!!).

After doing the minor trail maintenance, I grabbed my pack, put on my microspikes, and started hiking up the Pratt Lake Trail towards West Granite.

The major notable difference up to the junction on the trail is that due to some of the recent precipitation and higher temps, the snow had changed from drier powder to more of a slushy powder and refrozen compacted snow in areas. Otherwise, nothing major had really changed.

Continuing left after the junction along the Pratt Lake Trail, it was pretty uneventful and quiet. There had just been some minor (D1, if even) wet loose avalanches near some of the drainages (stream crossings). I wasn't concerned because of how low the snowpack was at the crossings and because the avalanche debris wasn't recent.

Continuing along the trail, I spotted a curious bootpath switchbacking up the hillside in the general direction of West Granite. I looked at CalTopo, said, "sure, why not?", then pushed up following the previous hiker's tracks (thank you for breaking trail!!!).

I got to a point where things got more flat and the snow deepened, so I transitioned from my microspikes to my snowshoes. The snowshoe track(s) I found (there were 2 in areas) were spot on in terms of efficiently hiking the ridge line. I followed the set of tracks that went right as the ascent per CalTopo seemed much easier and reasonably safe (the north side of the ridge looked steep, i.e., maybe a cliff face).

I got to an open section, paused for a second in a reasonably safe area to do a hand shear test, found some sun crust about 2cm down, planar slab issues down about 20cm down, and a few other layers of potential interest using my avalanche probe. Even though the avalanche forecast said the risk was low and the risk was wind slabs today, I minded my Ps and Qs, sticking to the ridge traverse, but also deviating a bit to keep closer to tree cover and less exposed terrain.

I got up to the ridge, noticed a number of cornices on the east side of the traverse, so I gave them a wide berth when possible to avoid accidentally triggering them.

I got up to the top of Tusk O'Granite, took some pictures, looked at the traverse up to Granite Mountain, noticed the huge cornices on the north side of the ridge, observed some wind scouring on the south side, and made a game plan to go up the south side of the ridge to avoid triggering the cornices, 

The way down to the saddle between West Granite and Granite was pretty easy. I did another hand shear test there to see if the conditions had changed, but they were constant with what I'd found before.

I was pretty successfully pushing up the ridge about 150', but I ran into steep terrain along the south end of the ridge that my snowshoes were having a hard time biting into with their builtin crampons due to the excessive wind scouring and the angle, and I didn't feel comfortable being so close to an exposed ridge that went down a few hundred feet to the bowl between Granite and West Granite. So I put on my microspikes, thinking they would help with the grip (I was worried about sliding on my snowshoes), and slipped twice on the icy ridge--thankfully I was able to safely self-arrest and the angle was low and the area wasn't super exposed on the ridge--so I bit the bullet and put my snowshoes back on and descended backwards to maximize the bite/contact on the wind scoured ridge.

I got down to the saddle, then considered traversing up around the bowl at Crystal Lake to the ridge, then walking the ridge to a safer section and ascending to the lookout. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how steep it was in some areas when looking at CalTopo and ran into a couple cliffy/steep areas that I had to back away from and move back uphill through deep dry powder.

I found a spot that had a reduced angle, so I went around the south side of the ridge, minding the terrain above me as there were a number of cornices and angles well over 35 degrees that were of concern. Fortunately, the weather was reasonably calm and cold and the slab concerns I found were diffuse/localized, so I was able to safely ascend up the drainage that intersects with the summer Granite Mountain trail (WARNING: I do not recommend following my snowshoe tracks up the drainage; walk the ridge on the west side of Crystal Lake bowl instead for efficiency and increased safety!!!).

Getting to the ridge, I saw that (to no real surprise), the summer trail wasn't safe due to huge cornices hanging over the east side. I poked around a bit and noticed that the saddle I had ascended last year seemed cornice free, so I gave the cornices a lot of berth, and pushed up the snowshoe track someone else made. After that, I mostly followed the existing snowshoe track up the remaining 150' or so, but gave the cornices on the east side space by walking more on the left side of the ridge.

I got up right before sundown, took some pics, then tried carefully walking down the ridge; it was super icy and steep in sections, so again the crampons on my snowshoes were having a tough time gripping in sections.

After a few failed meanders around, I got to the ridge, noticed that no one had gone up it in some time, which means the snow was pretty much knife edge. I didn't want to repeat the tricky traverse I did at Hex Mountain, as there were cornices on the north/east side of the ridge and there was a sheer drop off of at least 45 degrees on the south/west side with all of the sun crust from the last few days, so I gave up, cut over to the saddle, then pushed down through the powdery bowl, making sure to give the cornices plenty of space by walking on the far side of the drainage (there was a boot path that went almost directly below the cornices :/..).

I was trying to cut my travel time down since I ran out of water (yes, I under packed today -- 2L wasn't enough :(...), it was dark, and I hadn't eaten lunch/dinner (I was batting 1,000 today). So, I tried doing some short cutting like I did last year, but because the south ridge was all crusty from the sun and steep, I couldn't safely heel plunge and I was having a real go of it with my snowshoes trying to minimize the awkward side stepping by following the physical contour lines on the terrain.

I finally got down to the boot path someone else cleared, then followed it pretty closely. It was definitely hard to follow given the tree bombs that had triggered D1 wet loose avalanches over the past few days and the ducking over and under tree branches in the tight near treeline terrain.

Passing the third chute wasn't an issue today, but I definitely did observe the avalanche debris that I saw Wednesday (it seemed less than I thought; maybe D1 wet loose, but I could be wrong).

The way back was a bit more annoying because of the amount of booting folks had done to earn their turns (skiers/snowboarders I think) and because the snow was a bit hard chunky in some areas and slushy in others.

Once I got down to the junction, I took off my snowshoes and pretty much boot skied over the slush down to the car. It was much nicer boot skiing than wearing snowshoes because of the slush, the inconsistent bootpath in areas, and the fact that snowshoes weren't weighing down my feet.

I finally got back to the car around 8:45pm; there was only one other vehicle present.

It had most definitely been a long day with a number of close calls and lessons learned about planning things ahead a bit better next time for the conditions and for the traverses. It would have been really nice to have my crampons today.

PS A small wild cat (bobcat, etc), fisher cat, or marten had eaten a rabbit along the Pratt Lake Trail. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the paw prints so I could compare it with the ones in iTrack.

PPS Although there wasn't a ton of avalanche risk today (2020/02/22) according to the NWAC forecast for the Snoqualmie Pass zone, there are some weak layers to be mindful of if heading up to West Granite and Granite Mountain soon (more so for Granite Mountain in my humble opinion given the exposure). Given the large amount of new snow that's targeted for the Cascades tomorrow (2020/02/23) and the new forecast (Considerable at/above treeline; Moderate below treeline), I think it's safe to say that there will be a greater likelihood of triggering avalanches until a natural avalanche cycle works its way through the area.

Started off my hike at 2am, hoping to get up to the lookout around sunrise. That didn't come to pass because of avalanche concerns around the third snow chute.

First off, the forestry road to the parking lot is a bit icy, but I was able to avoid the ice until the parking lot. I did do a parallel parking job though, which I realize I probably shouldn't have done, but given that it was 2am in the winter time, I didn't mind all that much.

Sadly, the privy was closed, unlike last year :(.

Given that there's ice in the parking lot, it's safe to say that there's snow/ice right off the bat. The difference from when I last tried the trail (October/November, I think), was that there are a few <6" blowdowns within the first quarter mile that need to be cut/logged out (people are cutting around the logs, which is impacting the surrounding terrain as the snow cover is low).

The stream crossings aren't bad and the snow is pretty chunky up to just after the junction under the trees. There wasn't any real avalanche danger at the first exposed switchback below the waterfall.

Given that the snow pack was high enough, I figured I'd go off-trail (in part to speed up the ascent, but also to get a feel for what the snow pack was like with boot penetration tests). It was deeper, but not overly deep.

However, once I got out to the exposed area again near the second chute, I accidentally found a posthole that someone else made on the trail (it went down to my knee). I looked around with my headlamp and determined that there was some wet loose avalanche runout that had fallen in the chute, but it stopped short of the boot path, and a hand shear test I did suggested that the snow was wet and loose in consistency, but incoherent, so I walked very briskly across the boot path, doing my utmost to stay out of the exposed section going up the side, as the summer route zig zags in and out of the trees (I went up through the trees, which involved going around some slightly tricky micro terrain).

I was breaking trail through the woods from the second chute to the third chute. I tried picking micro terrain to help mitigate some of the concerns, as I had seen some minor wet loose avalanche debris on the tread (tree bombs, etc). I mitigated it, partly, by picking terrain that wasn't really under roll-overs, and next to trees (although I did get too close to a tree well by accident).

I got out to the third chute and looking across, I could barely make out some wet loose avalanche debris. To top it off, I couldn't find the spot in the trees where I needed to push up across the snow chute (drainage) to get to the other side, and there wasn't a lot of areas where I could stop and assess or do careful route finding, since the chute was completely exposed.

I did another hand shear test and noticed a change in conditions: there was a sun crust on top that wasn't present in other areas as much, followed up by deep powder with a drier interface (like surface hoar) between the powder and the sun crust. It broke off as a smaller slab with a non-planar interface, which suggested I should run more tests to get conclusive results (the results were inconclusive as to whether or not there was instability to be concerned about). Ergo, I was going to proceed with caution.

However, as I was moving around, I did dislodge a larger piece of the sun crust as a contiguous unit, which caused me to stop off to the side of the snow chute and wait until the sun rose to see what exactly I was dealing with (also: I figured the trip was over given that I was working with a time box with work at 10:30, etc). So, sticking around for the sunrise, I got a clearer picture of what the chute looked like.

It was pretty bad (D2/D2.5) where it did fall, there was a lot of undisturbed snow in the chute that flowed over rollover terrain, and there wasn't a clear exit out of the trees, so I definitely made the right call.

Going down, I was a bit less cautious in the second chute, seeing the actual conditions in the sunlight (I didn't hug the trees quite as much), but I did cross at the boot path down below.

Given this year's conditions vs last year's (mostly the difference in snow pack), my goal isn't to attempt the official Granite Mountain trail until March or April. There is a potential set of alternate routes that I plan on trying instead, which can't be done in the summer time due to LNT issues and the like; one route involves a traverse from Tusk O'Granite.

I'm definitely going to be more mindful of the conditions in the winter there now. I can tell last year was a fluke year compared to this year (which is closer to normal snowpack).

Started at 1pm from the parking lot. Managed to get to the top and back to the car in 3 hours. The trail was fine all the way up. At 2.5 mile mark snow was on the trail. I put on Micro Spikes when it started to get icy and slippery. I was wearing my trail runners the whole time. The trail was compacted by boots the whole way up in the snowy areas.

First time. Beautiful valley after ~3.5miles. People brought jars to collect berries. Amazing views from the top. 

First-time trip reporter here (was visiting WA from Northern California for a conference and brought gear to go on some hikes). Did a sunrise hike on Granite Mountain using the winter route. Started at 4:45am, reached the ridgeline by 6:25.  Had to use crampons starting around 3 miles into the hike (at around ~4300 ft). Snow was hard frozen, and there were lots of tracks from post-holers over the past few days that made climbing up more or less stair-climbing to the ridge. On the ridge, I didn't go all the way to the lookout station given the cornices I saw (and it looked like a very narrow window on the ridge given the snow conditions). Given I was hiking solo and could tell the snow was going to soften up fast as the sun rose, I decided to pass on a full ascent.