May 25, 2004, Granite Mountain

Starting at the Pratt Lake Trail Head at 7:00 A.M the temperature was allready in the mid 40s.  Hike 1 mile on the Pratt Lake trail, where then you make a sharp right and head up the trail to Granite Mountain.  Basically an easy trail to follow and completely free of snow up to around 4800 feet.  Once you hit the snow it was constant snow all the way to the Fire Lookout Point.  Just prior to hitting the snow line I saw an animal that kind of looked like a big Kitty Cat (Cougar), I figured it looked a bit big to be a Marmot and I'm not too sure it was a racoon.  I decided to make sure it saw me and started waving my poles and talking to myself.  After about 20 minutes I decided to go for the snow and from there on it was 3-4 hours of hiking up and down on the snow and skiing off various cornices.  Managed to ski down to Denny Lake.  The snow was fairly consolidated but was still fairly soft where it was sun exposed.  Good snow for boot packing made it easy to get several laps in.  It was hard for me to leave but I had to be at work that evening.  I find this to be an easy hike in and out and you don't have to worry about falling into hidden holes, yet.  This is probably best done on a weekday since this is a heavily used trail.  It can be crowded like Mt. Si on the weekends.  With the new snow that's falling this weekend, I figure this will be a good ski outing for at least another week or two.  
Donnelly