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Curtissimo
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Curtissimo
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PostMon Feb 25, 2008 8:07 pm 
Decided to beat the boredom offered by yet ANUTHA trip to a boring lowland peak surrounded by suburbs and finally get back up Granite Mountain. After stopping in North Bend for a quick breakfast, EastKing and I got to the trailhead at about a leisurely 9:30AM. The parking lot is plowed but quite icy around the edges, and people were only parking trail-side (pretty much full). As the photos show, it was snowy from the start, more than I had ever seen in 10 years of coming up here. Lots of running water and thin snow bridges cross the trail.
Around the second crossing of the avalanche gully we started up the West edge, closely hugging the treeline. At this point East King's decision to wear crampons made some sense, as the route was frequently icy and there has not been enough travel yet to establish a clear-cut step trench all the way to the summit. That should change within a week or two. At the end of the tree line we ascended around the bottom of a long cornice and right up the ridge. After the first little stretch bare rocks and earth are exposed almost all the way to the summit. I took the rocks (wearing tennis shoes) and East King with his crampons marched right up the snow (crusty but various step paths are already fast developing).
At the summit we met a friendly pair of OSAT trained mountaineers, David and Matt (pictured below). Matt took the express rocket glissade down (almost from the summit) while East King and I took a slightly more cautious route back to tree line before glissading the rest of the way down the avalanche gully. The snow was pure slush by this time and the warm sun made the cold buns tolerable. There must have been 20 people skiing down the mountain, something else I had never seen before.
The avalanche gully ends at a waterfall, which I had never before noticed either. The runout is safe and you should see it well before falling to your doom. A homespun path leads down around it and meets the main trail below the trail junction marker. All in all a very nice day! up.gif

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Backpacker Joe
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Backpacker Joe
Blind Hiker
PostMon Feb 25, 2008 8:46 pm 
Great report, and climb Q. up.gif

"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide." — Abraham Lincoln
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summithound
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summithound
Climbing Connoisseur
PostMon Feb 25, 2008 9:32 pm 
Way to go Quetzal_Curtissimo. up.gif I've been cooped up inside for over a week. Not having my own car is really starting to get on my nerves!

Pain is just weakness leaving the body.
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Magellan
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Magellan
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PostMon Feb 25, 2008 9:44 pm 
Yea! Greg survived Granite Mt! Yea! Thanks to Matt and David for the helpful training tips to the new guy. Sorry I couldn't join you guys.

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theCougAbides
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 10:03 am 
Express Glissading
This is the infamous Matt you met. Glissading down the "express" route, I went over a steep part, stopped myself, looked back and saw only snow. You three were no where in site. I was going to wait there for you, but when I looked down the mountain, I saw that my trekking poles were glissading on their own, one going right, the other going left. I quickly dove after them, first grabbing righty, then steering over to grab lefty. The only problem was that I had to take a hand off of my axe to grab the poles, and couldn't stop my glissade, which by that point I wouldn't even consider a glissade, it was more of a tumble. After probably 200 yards of tumbling, I somehow managed to stop myself with my feet, then waited for Dave to catch up, which was about 10 minutes. Glissaded the rest of the way down with no problems. If it weren't for the poles, I could have gone all the way down with only one stop. The lesson I learned: $25 trekking poles are not worth the potential injury that could come from an out of control (though fun) glissade. Overall it was a great trip. That was my first time on Granite, hopefully not my last.

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tigermn
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 11:50 am 
Granite Route
OK, I'm kinda new to all this winter travel, but as a newbie I have to ask the question. What are people doing going up and or down avalance gullies? I thought there was a "winter" route up Granite (at least it says in the Snowshoe routes book). Sounds like people used the potentially dangerous "summer" route... Was the risk really so low that it didn't matter, or are people just more daring?

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theCougAbides
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 12:48 pm 
The summer route up Granite crosses the avalanche gullies and goes up the east side of the mountain. The winter route goes straight up one of the avalanche gullies. Obviously you wouldn't want to go up it when the avalanche danger is high, but with a week of sun and increasing temperatures, the avalanche danger is pretty low. Also, with this particular route, you can go along a tree line and up a rocky ridge, which are both out of the main avalanche shoot.

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Bryan K
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Bryan K
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 3:24 pm 
Nice job on the summit Curt and Greg. Yet another trip I couldn't do because of a messed up work schedule mad.gif mad.gif

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SlowWalker
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SlowWalker
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 5:24 pm 
theCougAbides wrote:
The only problem was that I had to take a hand off of my axe to grab the poles, and couldn't stop my glissade, which by that point I wouldn't even consider a glissade, it was more of a tumble. After probably 200 yards of tumbling, I somehow managed to stop myself with my feet, then waited for Dave to catch up, which was about 10 minutes. Glissaded the rest of the way down with no problems. If it weren't for the poles, I could have gone all the way down with only one stop. The lesson I learned: $25 trekking poles are not worth the potential injury that could come from an out of control (though fun) glissade.
I recently finished Ed Viesturs' book ( up.gif ) and your comment made me remember a passage from the opening chapter.
Ed Viesturs wrote:
I’d learned the self-arrest when I’d started climbing, and as a guide I’d taught it to countless clients. So the instinct was automatic. It ran through my head even as I was getting jerked and pummeled around by the avalanche: “Number one: Never let go of your ax. Number two: Arrest! Arrest! Arrest!” I kept jabbing with the pick of the ax, but the snow beneath me was so dry, the pick just kept slicing through. I’d reach and dig, reach and dig.
Not that you didn't already know that. Just one of those things that is nice to remember wink.gif

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Curtissimo
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Location: Mexico Lindo y Querido si Muero Lejos de Ti
Curtissimo
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 9:52 pm 
hi infamous Matt: I'm glad you were OK, I couldn't see you from where we were on the ridge until a little later when we saw you with David from far above and you looked OK. I bet that was a hell of a ride, man! hockeygrin.gif I would have followed but I could not leave Greg by himself. Agree 100% with your description of the summer/winter route. BTW, Ed V aside, the greatest glissading lesson I know is not to have any items on the exterior of your pack (I figure that holding on to your axe should be self evident).

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EastKing
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EastKing
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 10:26 pm 
What a great trip! All I have been thinking is Wow I want to do that again. It was like my first time on a rollercoaster. I rode it once and than proceed to ride that coaster over 1000 time in the next five years and at least 115 coasters nationwide. Hopefully I can do the same with mountaineering. Here is the trip report I put on Summitpost.org http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/383392/Glissading-Granite.html This trip was a wonderful experience. Awesome trip report and photos. I had a great time. Special thanks thanks goes to Curt, Dave and Matt. Now what is the plan for next week!!! biggrin.gif

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Matt
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Matt
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PostTue Feb 26, 2008 11:58 pm 
To avoid confusion, please note that I am a different Matt. As people already commented, the Granite Mountain avalanche gullies would be usable in winter only during very low avalanche danger. Otherwise, the way to go is up a rib, not in the gullies. I lost my ice axe the first time I tried to glissade also. Hanging on is important, but holding the axe in the right position is also important. Make sure the pick is turned away from your body. Ice axe impalements while glissading are actually fairly common; I've seen it twice.

“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
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tigermn
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PostWed Feb 27, 2008 7:52 am 
Thanks for that clairification. I guess for me there probably isn't enough of a low avalance danger (unless the snow is gone, then you wouldn't wanna go up that way anyway) where I'd feel comfortable going up an avalanche chute.

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the Zachster
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PostWed Feb 27, 2008 9:04 am 
I'm glad a safe and fun trip was had by all. But being the very conservative avalanche fearing person that I am...I've always thought it was a bad idea to be hiking up/glissading down avalanche chutes. It seems that particular mountain catches people in avalanches almost every year. You really can't see what's above you when going up and it's impossible to safely assess the danger from below. To me it's a "best guess" and I just don't like playing with luck most of the time. Besides, there's a safer route, to the left of the chute. It's more work and not as fun going down, but definitely safer. And heads up to those going up in the spring...there will surely be some snow coming down then too. I do not mean to offend any of the highly experienced folks here that are excellent judges of these things, but I am concerned for the novices that visit this site and may think it's OK to just go hiking up an avalanche chute just because others have ...

"May I always be the kind of person my dog thinks I am"
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yukon222
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PostWed Feb 27, 2008 9:12 am 
I prefer to go up just 100 yards of the chute when you first leave the trail, then veer left up onto the rocky ridge spine all the way to the summit. The other alternate is to stay on the trail towards Ollalie/Talapus past the Granite junction for a bit, then head up thru the trees. It opens up into the big snowfield just west of the same SW ridge spine.

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