[Randy]

This is the Red Mountain near Snoqualmie Pass as there seem to be many mountains named "Red Mountain" in this state. We parked at the Summit West parking lot then headed back down the road a bit where we took a right up into the snow along the road that heads to the summer PCT trailhead. We stayed left and followed the road until it ends in a well compacted trail. We followed this trail north until intersecting Commonwealth Creek which we followed up into Commonwealth Basin. At roughly 3700' we found ourselves in a maze of feeder creeks, but manged to stay on course and cross the main creek across a sketched out log, but all went fine. By crossing the creek, we by-passed an active avalanche slope, and once passed it, we crossed back again at roughly 3900-4000'. Here we found ourselves at the base of the SW trending ridge of the mountain. We hoofed on up through trees to 4600' or so where we saw lots of evidence of fresh slides. From here to 5500' we went from tree patch to tree patch avoiding the worst of the potential avalanche slopes. The last few hundred feet along the ridge offered mixed snow conditions along a more rocky crest. We trended pretty much straight up the ridge (the only safe route given the conditions) until topping out around 2 PM. After a quick stay on the summit we hurried down our same route intent on getting down before conditions deteriorated any further. Once off the SW ridge, we found a nice compacted snowshoe track that got us all the way back to the trailhead somewhere around 5 PM. Another fine Snoqualmie Pass outing.