Friday Night Fun

Corn cycles have been hard to come by in the PNW the last few springs. April is usually a bit early for corn, but a week of sunny, but seasonable, weather meant that corn was ripe for the picking. Unfortunately, the nice weather was about to end just in time for the weekend. So I convinced Chris to join me in a local mission after work Friday.

We left Issaquah just before 4 PM and were hiking up the Granite Mountain trail by 4:30. Part of my interest was simply to scout the West Granite approach; I had heard of a nice climber’s trail leading into the basin beneath West Granite and Granite. We hiked past wildflowers and a lush forest, taking a left towards Olallie Lake. Around 2800 ft, just after crossing the major creek and a few short switchbacks, we found an unmarked trail leading up to the right. It was faint at first, but quickly became a defined trail. It was in great condition and took us directly up.

Looking at satellite imagery, I though it might be a smooth transition from dry trail to snow. Indeed, it was nearly ideal. Just as we crested the basin at 4k, we encountered full snow coverage. We left our shorts and trail runners behind and started skinning into the basin.

The basin between Granite and West Granite is beautiful, with smooth fall lines and old growth trees. We initially thought about cutting over to the SW Ridge of Granite, but we ended up just climbing towards the NW Ridge of Granite.

The snow was a bit on the “overcooked” side, but we optimistically hoped that cooling temperatures would produce some “reverse corn”.

With about an hour to kill before sunset, we decided to check out the snow on the southwest ridge. It turned out to be pretty good corn! I have skied the direct south chutes before, but never this broad ridge. Coverage was still quite good, although you did have to watch for lurking sharks, ready to bite.

It was so nice that we threw down a second short lap before heading back to the top. On our second lap, we could tell the snow was firming up slightly, making for even better reverse corn.

A cool wind was ripping at our final transition atop Granite. This time, we dropped directly down the west face into a series of chutes. The corn up top was wonderful, although the chutes were a bit manky.

We cruised easily back to our running shoes and were hiking back down the trail before complete darkness. It took only 45 min to hike back to our car, making for a shockingly simple entrance and exit!

While spring is typically the time of year to move on to bigger and more remote adventures, I feel grateful that I still have these backyard opportunities for when time is limited. It was pretty wild to work a full day and still get to ski good corn and watch the sun set in the mountains!

Notes:

• This approach is very useful in spring and summer. When there is snow down to 3k in the south chutes, that is definitely a simpler route. But as they start to melt out, this seems like a less bushy way to gain the broad SW Ridge, where there is excellent skiing.
• One could have a full day of corn skiing in this basin, skiing gentle SE aspects on West Granite before skiing the West bowl of Granite.
• Our timing was excellent in terms of snow coverage. The trail was completely dry, but then snow started right when the terrain became less steep around 4k.