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Winter Scramble - West Granite

West Granite scramble and (almost) Pratt proved to be a great safe plan B for a day with winter weather and considerable avalanche danger advisories.

Rodica Manole Rodica Manole
December 31, 2017
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • We started from Granite Mountain TH following a muddier and wetter than usual trail due to previous day downpour . We encountered a recent blow down in  the first 1/4 mile from TH but it was easy to climb over it. The trail was icy in places but we didn't end up using microspikes. Complete snow coverage started at about 3,000 ft but we din't have to start using snowshoes until after we passed the trail split and took the slightly obvious trail on the south-east side of Olallie Lake. West Ridge  was icy in places but we were able to climb and downclimb it in snowshoes. South slopes of West Granite ridge were not even fully covered with snow (boulders were  visible in places) and in general snow pack we continuously assessed throughout the day proved to be safe for our plans.

Party of 8 approached the windy West ridge ridge of Granite  from the north-east side of the Olallie lake and did follow it all way to the summit.  Being still early  (it took us about 4 hours from TH to the summit) we decided to not drop back to the lake but instead continue scrambling on the ridge to Pratt mountain until we would hit our turn around time. We stopped 500 ft shot from the summit of Pratt, partially retraced our foot prints back, then dropped to the west side of Olallie lake and found our way back to the main trail on its south side. Great 9 hour day out, summarizing +10 miles and +4,200 ft elevation gain.