Granite-Tusk o Granite loop, Alpine Lakes Wilderness

A quick winter trip I'd never got around to. Conditions were perfect for the winter route, wearing spikes car-to-car. Early start helped with firm conditions on the climb up, snow was either wind blown or in wind drifts on the ridge over to Tusk with the Olallie Lake trail being totally packed down.

Yeah, don't go the summer route...

Ben about halfway up the winter route section

Before the last section to the lookout

Granite Mountain lookout 5629'

Glacier Peak behind Chair Peak

Easterly flow inversion?

Granite from Tusk o Granite

2016 favorite outings

It has been a bit of a lazy winter thus far and I'm finally getting some motivation to start thinking about where I'd like to try and go this year. Below are some of my favorite trips and places from 2016. A big thank you to all my friends and partners for these great outings and memories!

January snowshoe to Slide Mountain, Mt. Rainier National Park

March snowshoe to Stormy Mountain, Chelan Range

Spring in the Teanaway Range, Three Brothers and Navajo Peak, Alpine Lakes Wilderness

Big group of friends, Big Jim Mountain, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, 

Bear Skull Mountain, Pasayten Wilderness

Running the Chelan-Sawtooth Traverse, Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness

Early summer in the Pasayten: Sheep Mountain, Pasayten Wilderness

Finally got to do the Carne-Leroy route with Mt. Maude, Glacier Peak Wilderness

Elysian Fields, Mt. Rainier National Park

Hard to beat the view from Easy Peak, North Cascades National Park

Snowking Mountain feels like a quintessential North Cascades hike-scramble, Glacier Peak Wilderness

Ben and I returned to finish the Highland Ridge Traverse, Great Basin National Park, Nevada

And we also swung by the Wallowa Mountains, Eagle Cap Wilderness, Oregon 

Squeezing in one last late-fall trip sans snowshoes, American Ridge, William O. Douglas Wilderness