I’ve met many a person on my trail adventures, and now on two occasions I’ve been very fortunate to meet a few fellows that have been utter assets to me. Asset is poor word choice for these individual due to them getting me out of a jam when I was ill prepared (missing a few essentials) in the first place. This hike could have had a worse ending if it wasn’t for a cool hiker by the name of Paul. That said I begin my tale. I was hoping to get up at the butt-crack of dawn and tackle Granite Mountain (I-90). However Carri wanted to get in an early workout, so I would be setting out later in the day, and would therefore need to hike something closer to home. I looked out my window and drooled over the possibility of climbing Mt. Persis. It's close by and would be more challenging than anything else I had done this year. I’ve wanted to climb Mt. Persis since I moved to Sultan, and today was my golden opportunity to get up there. As I waited for Carri to get home, I noticed that clouds were beginning to obscure the summit. Hopefully they would burn off (No such luck).

Forest Service Road 62 is in really good shape. My Honda Accord had no problems until I almost reached the end of 6220 (I bottomed out pretty bad). Not wanting to press my luck and damage my car I parked her and prepared to walk up the remainder of the road. I finalized my pack, started on my way and was immediately swarmed and bitten by a fly (Sentenced to death by backhanding). I applied some bug spray and had no more problems with bug on my hike. Following the forest road I noticed a beautiful waterfall just after the road switchbacks left before the road ends. I’ll have to have a closer look next time I’m up here. Followed the road for a spell longer and saw a parked truck. This could only mean one thing.. The trailhead is close by.

Finding the trailhead is kind of tricky, but it is pretty obvious once you see it and go up it a few feet. I started up it a little after 11:00 and was pleasantly surprised to find a rather good trail leading up the ridge. It’s steep, really steep (40-50 degree incline) and stays this way for a good distance. After traveling on the trail for a while I espied somebody about 30 yards up from me. I hastened myself to catch up to somebody who probably knew more about the mountain than I did. Good thing too, this fellow named Paul would be a very essential asset, saving my hide more than a few times the adventure-some hike. The trail stays steep and then you reach a talus field. There is Cairns to guide you, however if you hang right on the talus field, you will reconnect with the trail. If you hang left as Paul and I did, you get to scramble some boulders, and end up in the brush. After the talus we started hitting patches of snow and some rather large, unnerving animal paw prints. I would later discover what animal(s) left them when a solo hiker and his three rather large dogs were on their way down. There is some windfall on the trail so be prepared to crawl under, climb over, and traverse around large logs. The trail leveled out a little bit once we hit the snow around 4000 feet. I made sure to follow close behind Paul after I was hiking on snow. The orange flaggings on various trees were reassuring and got us to (or close to) the false summit, which would sadly be our only good views for the day. After this you need to drop down for 100 yards and then it gets kind of steep again. We hugged the west ridge cliffs pretty much until the summit. I lagged behind as Paul being in better shape smoked up the final push. As I was hugging the cliff, I noticed that I was really close to a cornice. I quickly retreated right, away from the edge. I heard Paul yell out if I was still there and heard that he was on top. Not much further I thought to myself, I was exhausted!. Moments later I finally reached the summit. Alas there were no views due to the perpetual whiteness. Here is a link to a fantastic trip report with pictures of glorious vistas from the summit on a clear day. I tottered around for about a half hour at the summit snapping shots of non-cloud obscurred earth and rock. I checked the time on my cell and saw that there were 5 bars so I excitedly called Carri so I could laud my mountaineering highpoint. I dialed, waited 30 seconds, got a breaking ring, and after hearing "Hello" I hastily started recounting my trip, only to have static as my audience. Took another look at my phone and saw the now dismal reception. The story would have to wait until I arrived home.

After talking with Paul for a while, I put my gloves back on and we departed. Glissading down the open slopes was really a lot more enjoyable then the going up. Before long we returned to the false summit, and Paul was nice enough to stop and offer some self-arrest lessons. He passed his ice axe and I eagerly took it and flung my fat body on the steep slope. A nice runout made it an easy decision. I took advantage of Pauls generous teaching by repeating the slid a few times. I successfully arrested my descent every time. We then continued our decent and bullshit about hikes and life in general. We then realized the blind were leading the blind. The path we were following was one created by someone else who guessed his/her descent. To make matters worse we were no traversing the cliffy northwest ridge of the false summit. Paul then consulted his GPS (He had earlier stated that it wasn’t worth the money, HA), and discovered we were off by 400 yards southeast. Went to the waypoint and immediately got back on the trail and descended to the talus field. Got down the talus field and returned to trail. The grade got steeper and steeper. I had a few falls on the way down, due to the inclination and the wet roots and rocks. I felt better when I had proof it wasn't just me, since Paul also fell a few times too. The heavens then opened up on us like Banshee. To make matters worse I had no rain gear. Paul bailed me out yeat again since he always brings extra clothing. He lent me a spare fleece waterproof windbreaker to keep the elements at bay, and it delivered keeping me dry and ware the rest of the way down to the road. He was nice enough to also give me a ride back to my car when we got back to his truck. Again I cannot overstate how grateful I am to have met Paul and tag along with him. THANK YOU! I need to make a trip to REI and make a few necessary purchases before I venture out again on a mountain like this.