Alpine Scramble - Low Mountain (winter)

Trip Report

We started the day at the Granite Mountain trailhead around 8:30 AM, and the parking lot was already full—clearly a popular start time, with at least 20 hikers hitting the trail alongside us. But Craig set a strong pace right off the bat, and we pulled ahead within the first 1,000 feet of elevation gain. In that first hour alone, we gained around 1,800–1,900 feet, which felt great.

After a short break to catch our breath and enjoy some views of the valley below, we continued up the switchbacks. Snow started showing up around 4,400 feet—heavy, sloppy spring snow.

A few more switchbacks in, we veered off the main Granite Mountain trail and dropped down toward Denny Lake, where the snow was more consolidated.

It was cool to finally see the backside of the Granite Mountain lookout and the granite slabs themselves—now I get why it’s called Granite Mountain. Denny Lake was still under snow but slowly starting to melt.

We crossed the creek safely, still covered by snow bridges, and continued into the trees toward the 5,200-foot notch on Low Mountain.

That section was steep with some open slopes, but manageable. Once we hit the notch, we followed the ridge up toward the summit of Low Mountain. We hit a false summit that had us fooled for a second, but once we were above the trees, the views opened up—Mt. Rainier was out in full glory, and we could see back toward Granite and the trailhead.

We dropped our poles and geared up with helmets and ice axes for the final traverse to the summit. Just below the summit block, we hit some fun rock scrambling, and before we knew it, we were on top of Low Mountain.

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At the summit, we made the call to turn it into a full loop. The descent was steep but not exposed or technical. We stuck to the ridge where possible and had decent snow coverage all the way down to about 4,200 feet.

From there, we did a short 200–300 feet of bushwhacking—not too bad—and picked up snow again for a traverse back toward the Denny Creek trail.

That trail was in melt-out mode with plenty of postholing and punching through around rocks. Still, it was a pleasant finish. We saw avalanche lilies and glacier lilies blooming along the way, a nice sign of spring.

We wrapped up back at the cars at the Franklin Falls trailhead, tired but stoked. A great loop with a bit of everything—snow, scrambling, ridges, and views for days.

Map