Feb 20, 2010, Granite Mtn and NW Granite (5566')

After a quick glance at this afternoon's TR's I am seeing more variation than I expected.  I had thought that we'd be best off on west aspects on account of Jake and Dave coming from Leavenworth.  After serving them breakfast, and farting around, we left the Talapus LakeTrailhead at close to 10:00AM.  Hence the idea that west aspects were the choice we needed with this late start, and knowing that we'd be able to do the combo of west slopes on the two mountains from this route.  Hiked to within 1/4 mile of Ollalie Lake and put skis on there.  The road is in great shape.   Skinned across the lake and up the west slopes checking conditions as we went.  Still frozen, crampons a good thing.  Quick note on something to watch for: we traversed momentarily onto the NW glades of NW Granite to see what the snow was like. We found a 1/2 inch hoar frost development over the thin rain crust above a foot of the old powder on the shady aspect . 
After reaching the top of the NW Peak we quickly skied to the saddle with Granite on variable stuff.  Skins on for the final climb to Granite Mtn, traversing out onto the top of the west slope for a condition check: still frozen at 1:00 PM.  Whoa at the top: lots of folks as expected!  We thought we wanted the west slope but opted for the SW thinking it may have thawed a bit.  Surprisingly the top 1/2 was still frozen but skiable.  The bottom 1/2 was good corn with about an inch or less thaw.  That the snow could still be frozen after 1PM had us thinking, with each successively sunny warm day and cold clear night, the melt/freeze crust must continue to gain thickness.  Good news for corn harvests, and a big difference from Wed on Lundin.  We ran the ski out to about 4200 feet, turning into the main basin between the two peaks until stopped by alder.

The skin up through the basin surprised us to still have an inch or more of firm crust to float on beneath a couple inches of thawed corn.  Once back on top of NW Granite, we waited it out some for the west slope to thaw.  Again, we were surprised because it really never did thaw out until down at about 4400 feet.  We were trying to move to the more Southwesterly aspects but it didn't help much.  The bottom near the lake was getting a bit thin with creeks but we reached it and skated back across.  The big bowl beneath the west side of Granite had thawed much more on westerly aspects..  Solar radiation from the bowl shape, perhaps?

Overall a fun day with a new twist to the traditional approach from the Granite/Pratt TH.  This route is nice for west aspects because it starts 800 feet higher with the road access this winter.  Plus there is no fighting the steeper forested south exits of the big bowl and Granite Mtn proper.  Fewer people, too.  With the thick crust now forming, time this one on a day with a predicted warm up higher than what we found  and one would be rewarded with up to 3000 vertical feet of good corn skiing! Otherwise S/SW slopes are probably a better bet for the next few days.  Another group we met had the same tandem idea but probably found better skiing on the south slope of NW Granite.  I love the scenicness of these two hills even so close to I-90!

I'll get this out for info sake and post a few pics if any are worth it.