Feb 3, 2009, Granite Mountain

Got a little bit of a late start.  My car's outside temp read out was 54 degrees at 10:30am in North Bend, 51 degrees 15 minutes later at the trailhead.

The well worn trail up through the woods starts as mostly dirt, then in 5 minutes dirty snow broken often by streams and dirt patches.  The snow gets a little more reasonable for skinning after about 30 minutes of hiking, or 15 minutes from when you'd take off the skins and start booting anyway.  So I booted the whole way.

the snow was nice up there -- it was probably ready to be ridden at around noon, but it was windy on the ridge and on top so it didn't get overly soft in the sunshine.  When I descended at 2pm there was 2-3 inches of proto-corn on a firm but not boiler base.  I came down the rib between the two most prominent slide paths, which made for a long, happy ride in the warm sunshine.  Did a little digging and the bond between the old and last week's layer was pretty well-bonded.  YMMV, and I stayed out of the bowls anyway.

I rode out the apron of the slide path as far as possible, then had to hike down through the trees back to the trail and down.  It is a mess down low -- maybe it could be skied but lots of dirt, branches, needles and assorted low-snow detritus.

Would I repeat?  It was great up top but if it continues to be warm one could likely find south facing slopes up at the pass that wouldn't require hiking in and out.