Background
Each summer there’s a few adventures that I tell myself ‘yea, I really wanna do that this year’; then, when the fall snowstorms roll in and the rains come, I look back and haven’t done them. Linking up the peaks along the I-90 skyline, which has been dubbed as the ‘Mailbox to Granite Traverse’, is one of those.
Kyle popularized the route a few years back but it’s been done by many a North Bend peakbagger for years, I’m sure. It’s got a bit of an infamous reputation for being blue collar, brushy, and pretty rugged. There’s little running, as large chunks of it are off-trail and almost all of it involves going up or down. . . there’s little flat involved.
This summer I’ve tried to push myself to do one ‘adventure’ per week; I can get so ‘lost’ in the summer months, losing my adventurous spirit a bit when the snowflakes have stopped flying. I then get to the end of the summer and feel disappointed that I didn’t push myself with some more ‘oomph’. I’ve wanted to go from Mailbox all the way to Snoqualmie Pass for a while, I considered doing that. Ultimately, the night before I was waffling hard on whether I was gonna get my butt out the door at all. The motivation was waning, “I’ll just make a call when I wake up” I told myself. Not a good strategy for success.
Trip Report
Sure enough, I turned off my morning alarm. Sleeping in felt nice.
I hastily packed up some things. Some pizza, some gels, some high-carb drink mix. I was rallying; I knew I’d be bummed if I didn’t push myself out the door. I texted with Letty, she was willing to pick me up at the pass or at Granite later in the day. My dream has been to go all the way to the pass and then bike home, but I’d leave that for another day.
I left the house at the alpine hour of 8AM, having successfully gotten out my morning poop. Check! Things were off to a good start. It was supposed to get hot as the day wore on but I figured that I could keep myself wet in the creeks and lakes along the way.
Up Mailbox I went. I tried to keep a decent pace but an all-day pace nonetheless. I topped out in around 1:15. I quickly snapped a photo, then pushed onwards, ready to begin the adventure. There was a decent foot trail to follow all the way to Dirtybox. The infamous section of the ridgeline really starts at Dirtybox; there’s a Strava segment titled ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’.
It’s really not that bad. There’s brush, yes, and scrambling, yes, but nothing that mandatorily exceeds Class 4 briefly. Ultimately, the traffic this route has seen in recent years has helped it tremendously. At some point I ducked off the ridgeline to the righthand-side on a sandy portion that was a little loose but not too bad. From there, there was still a decent boot trail to follow all the way to Dirty Harry’s. The fixed line that many mention is right before Dirty Harry’s, helping for the final pitch up to the summit.
From Dirty Harry’s I cruised down the trail and found water right at the junction where I’d veer off to go towards Webb. I’m sure later in the summer this very faint spring / creek dries up; for now, it was CLUTCH. I filled up a liter, got myself wet, and continued on.
I made my first route-finding mistake heading up towards the headwaters of Granite Creek. There’s a faint trail right of the boulderfield in the trees; I inefficiently stuck to the boulderfield, which would have worked but was much slower. Next time I’d just stay in the forest.
Once at the headwaters of Granite Creek by a faint pond, I made another route finding goof and headed too far left, instead of heading up more directly towards Webb. It probably lost me 15 minutes or so. The easiest way up to Webb is honestly just paralleling the creek bed on the righthand side.
Once atop Webb, the ridgeline gets pretty sweet. A quick hop over to P3 then the classic $$$ section to Defiance. I opted to make it a bit of a peakbagger-y trip and summited Defiance. I jogged down to Mason Lake, where I filled water and dunked my hat again. I think that Bandera is kind of a ‘must’ on the route since it’s so prominent above the highway; that said, Bandera adds a lot of BS. The steep climb up to Bandera West and traverse over to the true summit were both fine. The descent off Bandera, however, SUUUUUUCKS. I’d even call it the crux of the day, for me at least. It’s super brushy, steep, and just generally crap. It took me quite a while to make it down to Island Lake, where I met up with Letty. I was quite glad for a break to grab water.
I opted to skip Pratt because (hot take) it’s kinda lame, not really on the ridge, and didn’t seem worth it to me. Plus, coming right after the Bandera shwack, I wasn’t too psyched. Letty and I jogged along the trail to where the route deviates again to go up Tusk O’ Granite.
I ducked off the trail and said goodbye to Letty, who jogged down to her car at Granite. I punched up through a boulderfield to the ridge, then kind of hugged the brushline of the ridge on the right hand side to get up to Tusk. It’s brushy but not as bad as Bandera.
I grooved up Tusk and then over to Granite. I could smell the barn. I was low on water at this point but it didn’t matter that much. Getting over to Granite from Tusk was pretty cool; I really enjoyed this section.
I topped out the summit of Granite in right around 8 hours or so. Felt reasonable, not too fast but definitely some time that could have been taken off with better route finding around Webb and off Bandera.