Granite Mountain Training Climb

On Saturday, February 4th, Mike Pickerel and Joshua Brandon teamed up to do a  day training climb on Granite Mountain near Snoqualmie Pass. No new powder and at Crystal, combined with gorgeous weather and moderate to low avalanche conditions were the perfect recipe for a winter training climb. We set out with warm temps and under a blue sky up the hiker's trail from the Granite Mountain trail head. We were both pretty pumped to back on the mountain again, especially in February. After about an hour, we left the trail near the second couloir we crossed, which had seen some signs of recent avalanche'ing after the recent storms,  and pushed up the mountain. After popping out of the treeline, the winds kicked in hard with 50 mph gusts, but with a clear day and good snow conditions, we decided to push for the summit. With the wind, ice, and recent snows, the top of the mountain, usually a summer time hot spot for hiker's and sight-seers, mimicked much higher vertical conditions.  This provided us with a great opportunity for conditioning and to work on our technique. Once we crested the summit ridge, we were treated with amazing views of the surrounding mountain ranges, but with the wind letting us know who was boss, we tagged the top and immediately headed down. We grabbed a few landscape shots while huddled next to the lookout, but we were far more interested in getting out of the wind and getting some warm coffee in us. After our four hour movement up and back, we finally dipped below the tree-line for a much needed break with coffee and snickers. We stripped our crampons off, glissaded down as far as we could, and finished the day with a cold beer at the trail head.

View to the East from the summit.

View to the North East of the summit.