The summit lookout, a good mile away.
Got up around 5:00 (I’d set my watch to wake me at 5:00, but woke up at five after, to discover that I’d set it for 5:00 PM.) Dressed and packed, and ate a Costco poppyseed muffin on the way over to Dan's, my climbing breakfast these days.
Picked up Dan, and headed up the pass. We ended up having to stop in North Bend, because I was lower on gas than I’d thought, and it started drizzling, which didn’t look good. But it stopped drizzling shortly, and there was no dampness on the ground at the trailhead.
I forgot both my heavy socks and my gaiters. And, Monkey. Sheesh. That’s what I get for packing in the morning. Fortunately, Dan had brought a spare set of socks, and I made do without gaiters. My feet got pretty wet by the end of the day, of course.
I set my new altimeter-watch to 1800 feet, what the book said the trailhead elevation was, and we headed up the trail. We missed the turnoff to Granite Mountain, and headed blithely up the trail to the lake. Eventually it became clear this was wrong, and we turned back, and found a snowshoe trail up the hillside and took it.
We stopped at 4200 feet (by the altimeter) when the trees cleared out enough to see that we weren’t anywhere near Granite Mountain, at least not the summit, which we could see clearly, a good mile away, to the east. We considered hiking over there, but the snow was completely unconsolidated; we immediately went thigh deep, so we decided to turn around and head down the hill.
And, we ran into a dozen people heading up, with packs and snowshoes. We informed them that this was not the Granite Mountain trail, and the guy in the front said yeah, it was the West Granite summit. I started to say that we were heading for Granite Mountain, so we were heading back down, when a couple of the guys started barking out instructions to us, like they were competing with eachother, about how this wasn’t the right trail, and where the right one was, and to stay out of the gulley because it’s an avalanche machine.
So as we were passing the last of them, Dan asked if they were a club, and the guy said Mountaineers. As they passed from earshot, Dan said "Man, I just KNEW it!..."
So, back down the trail, and we mucked around for a while before we finally found the trail which, when we found it, I couldn’t see how we could have missed it; there’s a wooden signboard pointing to it, and the trail is really obvious. It was pretty amazing that we didn’t see it. I remember from last time not having any troubles, so I didn’t pay much attention. Live and learn. Talk less, watch more.
So we stopped for a snack, at my recommendation, once we hit the open snow. I was feeling pretty beat, three and a half hours into the thing, and only about a thousand feet up on our actual climb. The first trail had been a lot of work breaking; this one was nice and solid, but I sure couldn’t see slogging another 2500 feet like what I’d had to do before.
Fortunately food and drink and rest, as always, revived me. Dan led for a while, and was doing fine, but he was flagging a bit, so I took the lead.
It was surprising how familiar everything looked once we were on the right trail. I'd been up here about four or five years ago, my first climb with my then-new ice axe. The trail goes up along the ridge, which is bare exposed rock, and some of the most miserable plant life you can imagine. "What a crappy place to be a plant" I remarked to Dan, and he laughed and agreed.
I ended up getting off the rock and going sort of diagonally to the right. The snow was very good, really firm but not hard enough to need crampons. There were the ice-caked trees I remembered from last time.
And, as we got to the summit, we got to see some pretty impressive cornices just to the right of the knoll where the lookout is built. The lookout isn’t actually on the true summit, I discovered. Last time I was up here, visibility was maybe 20 feet, so I didn’t feel safe going north of the tower, but the actual summit is about fifty feet north (and about five feet higher.)
I felt bad about not bringing Maisie; I’d worried a lot about soft sticky snow, but this would have been perfect for her. Max even more so.
The descent was quicker, of course. We couldn’t glissade from the summit because it was a bit too steep and icy, and we weren’t descending the fall line. But we plunge-stepped pretty quickly down to where we could, and made the first glissade tracks on the snow. I was surprised at the lack of snowboarders, we saw a few people with skis, and more with snowshoes, but not a single snowboarder. I’d have thought that this wide open bowl would be perfect for snowboarding. Go figure.
I stopped glissading when I got stuck in some deep snow, and my left leg was so deeply buried I couldn’t move it. I was completely stuck, and Dan helped me to excavate it (I suppose could have done it, but he started right in.) A reminder that you can’t just push your way out of an avalanche.
The hike down took longer than I’d remembered (when has it not?) Down to the main trail took longer, and to the trailhead from there took a good half hour longer than I’d expected. Anyhow, the point of this climb was to get acquainted, and it seems like we're compatible for a Rainier climb. Now, we just have to get some good weather for Gib Ledges.
Got home around 3:30 or so. Heidi ended up going shopping, so Peter and I went downstairs and watched Rocket Power for a while (he watched, and I lay down and closed my eyes. But I listened carefully.)