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Left Sultan at 9:45am and decided against the Lake Stevens to Granite Falls route. Instead I turned right onto Woods Creek Road off of HW2.. It's a really scenic and lightly travelled road, where you can easily cruise most of the way over 50mph. To follow suite You need to turn right(westbound) onto Roesiger Road and take immediate right fork shortly after.. It's no small pond.. It's quite a large lake and the whole shoreline is riddled with cabins and houses. I had no clue it even existed until a few years ago. Shortly after you pass the lake you'll end up in Granite Falls (7 miles). Turn right onto Mountain loop hwy.
The road was clear all the way up to the trail head, except for a few sketchy icy spots that were shaded. Arrived at the trailhead around 11:20am. Throngs of visitor cars this winter have compacted the snow in the parking lot resulting in a ice rink. I worried about my poor Honda making it out, then I remebered I had chains (no worries). The ice field made the walk from the car to the trailhead a bit precarious. I made it half way, and realized I had left the 11th essential in the car.. I slipped on the way to retrieve my cell phone, but miraculously recovered my footing saving my arse an assortment of color changes.
Trail starts out like a lamb but quickly turns into a switchbacking raging lion. The majority of the trail is switchbacks but is in cool lush forest. The upper parts of the trail before the plateau still have ice in spots, with one particular nasty one towards the end of the switchbacks. There is a rock there to assist you in safe passage. A little further on, the snow gets more consistent and less icy. There is a nice little melt water waterfall streaming down a little cliff that the trail goes around. I passed a man here and I ended up talking with him for a while. I queried him about the upper trail conditions, the nice weather, and then equipment. He then showed me his Yak Traks (Yax Traxs?). They are basically inexpensive crampon knockoffs that slip around your boots.. They are not crampons, but as he put it, for $20 bucks, who cares, they keep your feet on the ice. I'm going to have to get me a pair.
After the waterfall lies a few more switch backs and then the terrain somewhat plateus off. Someone was nice enough to dig a path through the trail as I noted the 3 foot snowwalls. The trail then reverses direction and after that veers of to the west bringing you to an awe inspiring view point of Hall, Big4, pilchuck, 3 finger, and whitehorse to the west. However my heart sank when I looked east and saw Dickerman's peak. It looked a great distance away, I was drained, and it looked a more serious grade. I compare this feeling to my Persis hike when I saw the true summit from the false peak... Daunting indeed. With under a mile to go the final 700 feet would indeed be very challenging. But with the clear skies and the potential views north, I had to continue on.
To be blunt the final trek to the summit on snow really sucked. It's really steep and the snow was slushy making it slow going. I passed two people on the slope which boosted my ego. Six people were decending and a group of 5 were ahead of me suffering along side me. One of them was a 9-11 year old girl, hopes she sticks with it. I finally arrived at the summit somewhere around 2:30pm. The views were absolutely stunning. Glacier Peak and and the scary westface of Sloan are practically in your face. 360 views comprising Baker, Shukshan, pickets, whitechuck, dome, pugh, monte cristo peaks, Del Campo, Sperry, Vesper,... the peaks go on and on. I was a little bummed about there being no summit register.. I'm guessing it's buried under the snow. Ate my lunch and then soaked up the sun and scenery. I could have spent hours up there.
However getting home at a decent time was a priority so a little before three, I made my decent. I had a blast glissading down the snow slopes. Sliding down on my rear increased the enjoyment ten fold. After that the snow slopes changed back to an snow trail where a squirel broke the silence and startled the hell out of me. It then scurried to the other side of tree. After this it was a pretty uneventful descent. It seemed like an eternity to get off the mountain. I was exhausted and I actually had to sit down and rest for a minute. I finally reached the car at 4:45pm. Changed shoes, drank some water, mulled over the trip then started home. Mixed it up in regard to music on the way home. Started off with some Cannibal Corpse - The Bleeding and then ended on Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle. I highly enjoyed this trip and would recommend it to anyone. Just make sure that your first time is on a sunny, cloudless day. You won't be disappointed.
3 hr 10 minutes up and took 2 hrs down.
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