Granite Mountain gwanch patrol April 7.

Androolus and I headed for Granite this morning ariving at about 715 and started out about 730. The first order of business was to fight off the bigest frickin' mosquitoes I have ever seen in Washington. These were easily the size of the ones I encountered in Alaska. I guess spring is here. By the time we hit the trail the mosquitoes were gone and so is the snow. The trail is bare for quite a ways up. Androolus brought his approach shoes and I wish I had brought mine!!!!! Once we hit the snow in the gully we booted straight up to the summit. The snow was pretty consistent and step kicking was not a problem. We made it to the lookout at 1030 and There were a couple of climbers and we met Preston and Spltbrdr from TAY. Nice to meet you guys. After a bit of a break we decided to ski the west face for a warm up. The snow was great and we skied down to the tree line. We skinned back to the summit(whew!) and took another break and watched the rain coming in. They say timing is everything and we skied the gully we came up. The snow was just as nice if not better than the west side. Things felt good and consolidated with no sluff. By the time we had made our last few turns the skies opened up and gave us a nice shower that did stop after about 10 minutes. There are some great boot tracks and great skiing left, but, not for very long get it while you can. As for the gwanch...we found none, but, we will keep looking. Jay.