GRANITE PEAK THE OTHER WAY / AUG 2008

I had always wanted to get to the top of Granite Peak. What I didn't want to do is walk that long featureless Froze-to-Death Plateau coming and going. This was one of the first trips where I started to do research online. Using my bell-curve method, I throw out all the horror stories of how difficult the Huckleberry Creek/Avalanche Lake approach could be. I had a map but no forecast. What's the worst that could happen. You get wet.

And of course the first person I meet while crossing the boulder field at Huckleberry Lake had indeed had himself quite the epic. Perhaps route finding was not his best skill set, but he'd never made it past the upper lakes and was still shaking from the experience.

With that in mind I continued up to Princess lake and then after a couple of backtracks found the path up to Snow Ball Lakes. I don't know anything about the Cold Pond approach but this was easy and pleasant walking. Took about 6 hours to get to the lakes where I set up camp early and rested in the sun. Next day a cold front blew through pushing a handfull of hikers down and out of the valley.

Not really knowing if the whole thing would be a bust, I awoke to pre-dawn skies that promised a fine day. Some of the nicest alpine walking I've ever done came next. The terrain all the way to Avalanche Lake is just plain beautiful. On the knoll above the dreaded 'house sized boulders' I stopped to rest, eat and plan my route.

I don't think it would be totally out of place to say that what came next was totally anti-climatic. Seeing a faint ramp of doable scree to the top of the pile, I was surprised to see that from there I would be able to link together numerous small grassy meadows all the way to the south end of the lake. The 'house-sizeed-boulders' were no where to be seen.

I was still in carry over mode so keep on going to the col. I found a nice stretch of low angle snow that saved a lot of time and energy before committing to the scree left of the steep snow slopes below the east face. I arrived at the col around 1pm and initially thought I'd bivy there and head up in the morning. That however lasted about 10 minutes before I cached everything I didn't need and headed up the low angle ridge for the 'snow birdge'. That too turned out to be nothing more than a beaten path of doable snow with little or no exposure.

The climb itself was fun and as I approached the final technical section I heard then saw a party descending from the keyhole. Rather than get back on the traverse they continued to rap down the gully. Meanwhile I found all the right spots where you can easily solo up to the ledge system that takes you left to the step over above the aforementioned gully. I could see them several rope lengths below me as I disappeared onto the slopes above and the final scramble to the top.

It was a beautiful day, but the wrong time to look over at the big north faces of Villard and Glacier where I had been 29 years earlier. The descent was quite straight forward. Did one short rap below the top and one longer rap in the upper chimney. As I started down the lower chimney I came upon a goat climbing up it. Seriously!. He or she bolted and I continued down the ridge to my cache. Should have campted there but it being a nice time of day to walk, I packed up and made for the bivy sites on Tempest Mt. They were full of weekenders arriving for what would be a crowded Saturday on the peak. I keep walking for a bit and found a nice site for the night. Next morning was quiet as everyone had left for the peak. I made my way down the long walk to Mystic Lake thinking all the time that I should have camped at Avalanche Lake and come out the way I came in.