I went back to Granite Mountain, one of the local climbs off the interstate maybe a half an hour from our house. You drive east to Snoqualmie Pass and it’s right before the pass. I-90 goes from Seattle to Boston and cuts right through the Cascade mountain range at this pass. It’s ranked a hard climb but I’ve done it several times before, just never in January.

Probably the most dangerous part of the trip was the drive there up the freeway in the dark. Feels like a wind tunnel the way the wind cuts through the corridor. It makes a low thrum you can hear many miles away in the early morning when there is no other sound in our neighborhood. There was some ominous sign that said STRONG WIND GUSTS AHEAD, in red. Our 17-year-old Honda Pilot is heavy as a tank but shimmied all over the road. To think, I used to spark up before I’d do something like this. Nuts.

And in the stark parking lot in the dark it was game time for Bill Pearse, who hadn’t done a winter solo trek like this in years, and felt quite a bit older than the last time I’d summited Granite, five years ago. Laying out my gear with the lift gate open trying not to forget anything. Taking way too long strapping on my gaiters. Having trouble cinching down my ice ax. Fearful someone was watching me, taking notes on my performance.

But up the mountain in the dark with my headlamp I felt strong and good, all that recent yoga paying off. Not far in though my heels began to crack and bleed from the evil leather mountaineering boots with the three-quarter steel shank up the back that makes for stiff footing but is a bitch on the skin. I just tried not to think about it.

Dark, cold and windy with ice particles floating around in the cone of my headlamp. Not snow, just crystalline schmutz off the trees. The trail meanders around an avalanche chute but there wasn’t enough snow to worry about it and the risk was considered low. Still each time I paused to look up the chute I thought about it. There were plenty of broken trees and rock debris to remind you it was really real.

Above the tree line I took a video of the fog/clouds blowing through; I was up above it now looking down, as one might look out from a plane. There was enough snow and sun I realized I should have brought glacier goggles and sunscreen but had neither. No first aid kit, to boot. But I had the red Leki fleece jacket Eberhard had given me, the same color red as the jackets the Austrian mountain rescue guys wore, and it was kick-ass. I was proud to put that on during a break.

When you get above the tree line it’s a slog of snow and rock and tufts of bear grass (called such because they dig it up with their snouts and eat the roots). I had my micro-spikes which were just perfect for kicking steps up the side to the ridge and I felt good about my form, practicing the rest step with each kick, making good time.

There’s a small wooden sign in the snow pointing north, that just says “main trail” but all the steps were going straight up to the fire lookout at the summit. That was the winter route I’d heard about, which was shorter but potentially dangerous for reasons I couldn’t remember clearly. It either dealt with avalanche or cornices. The ridge was a proper hog’s back, thin and rocky, don’t fall to the right, with plenty of postholing possibilities and snow melting out by the big rocks. You had to take care with the micro-spikes on the rocks because they didn’t exactly grip right.

This is where I saw two hikers camped out chilling in the sun, and as I got closer realized they were young women, both looking refreshed and happy, warm, possibly models from an REI catalog. I paused to ask, you heading up or down, and they said they’d been there since 4:30 (in the morning) just watching the sun rise, making pancakes, etc. Kind of awesome and weird. They both looked like they did yoga.

Another young woman appeared behind me with a small snickerdoodle on a leash and said to one of them hey, are you on TikTok? Heidi Hikes? And Heidi Hikes nodded and said with glee she was, happy to be recognized as the social media mogul she was right here in the flesh, in situ, along with her sidekick Hannah, who was also on Instagram, but presumably with a lesser follower count than Heidi Hikes. They all exchanged handles. I kept standing there waiting to ask Heidi Hikes and Hannah about the cornice to the summit, because it looked suss, and did they know anything about it (being big time TikTokers). It sounded pretty doable, they said. Heidi had good teeth.

I said I’d forgotten my sunscreen though and felt like my face was getting hot and pointed listlessly at it but they weren’t paying attention. I also said I’d forgotten my first aid kit, trying to make a joke about it, then something about being in The Mountaineers twenty-five years ago (can you believe it?) but they didn’t acknowledge that either, or respond. And so I said I’m heading back down and Heidi Hikes said something about my ice ax I couldn’t make out, which made me feel self-conscious (no one else had axes, they all had poles) and so I unstrapped it just to use it and prove I knew how, but then I felt self-conscious again and worried maybe I’d slip and one of them would have to rescue me, and how unthinkable that was.

The ax was candy apple red, almost the same color as my Leki jacket, and looked bad-ass. It had a bright green leash my friend Brad fashioned for me because I never learned to tie a proper knot. After a while I switched back to my poles and slid back down the side of the mountain, the snow now getting slushy as the sun got higher.

Made it back to the car, up and back, in five hours, the skin on my heels mince meat. Screamed when I stepped into the hot salt bath later. In bed now with a dehydration headache and the dog snoring, wondering if the edges of my cornea are burned. But otherwise feeling good. Thinking about my next trip, soon.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir

Tags: Alpine hiking, Creative Nonfiction, humor, pacific northwest