Before 4:30 I was awake and brewing coffee. Shortly afterward, I woke up Helen and Cheryl while admiring the clear night sky. Hundreds of stars were out and I even spotted a shooting star. Only a few clouds hovered at the margins to the north and east. I wished that the weather would hold.

Even before 5:30 we were moving away from camp and up to the exposed sites I'd scouted the day before. There was enough pre-dawn light that we didn't even need our headlamps turned on. Before 30 minutes were up, we had reached the beginning of the descent to the Tempest-Granite saddle. Across the valley, the northeast face of Granite Peak was just starting to glow from the sun's first light.

As we moved down the lose rocks I pointed out Avalanche Lake to my teammates. I reached the saddle and climbed up to look on the other side where I spotted our first mountain goat. Surprised by my sudden appearance only 20 feet away it scampered off before the others got to see.

Once at the saddle we followed a variety of trails along the south side of the ridge running up to Granite's summit. The trails all took different routes to go to the same place, and I just tried to stay up and near the crest of the ridge. The rock was less lose there, and the climbing was mostly easily scrambling. A few times we peaked right over the crest to look down the more sheer north side of the ridge at the Granite Glacier.

Before long we reached the snow bridge, which was indeed melted out at the very crest. Icy snow fell away on both sides however so we stuck to the dirt and rock. Above the snow bridge was our first real scrambling, a long gully leading to a notch. The path was well beaten to the base of the gully and a few rappel anchors helped mark the route.

I started up and sent down advice to Helen and Cheryl as I climbed higher. Both managed the gully very well with no need to rope up. The last bit was steeper, but the holds were solid and prominent. From this point we could see we needed to descend a bit then climb back up a smaller gully. This route was even marked with goat fir and poop. I was finding it increasingly amazing where that species had been.

Once we'd climbed the next gully and rounded a corner the true crux stood in our way. We took a break to consult the diagrams and photos I'd printed out from a climbers report on the internet. We could easily see the major features and the rappel slings which collaborated the online report.

After scrambling to the base of the first of two Class 4/5 pitches, I broke out the climbing ropes and made sure everyone was tied in properly. Helen put me on belay, but I would be essentially climbing free, placing no protection until I reached the anchors.

The first pitch quickly established itself as the hardest of the day, as it awkwardly leaned back with few good foot holds. Luckily, the hand holds were solid and I reached the short traverse to the anchor. It appeared that every 10th party must come up and re-enforce the anchor with extra webbing or rappel rings. I clipped myself to the webbing after checking the block that it was threaded through looked solid, then yelled "Off belay".

After setting up the top belay I took in all the slack and told Cheryl to start climbing. I heard her grunt a few times, but she pulled through quickly and was soon at the summit. Helen followed suit then I tore down the belay and reset the ropes to begin the second pitch.

This pitch was longer, but the climbing was easier. Still, I was glad I was comfortable with exposure and took it slowly since I was essentially climbing without protection. The next anchor was just as solid and over-constructed as the last, and soon Helen and Cheryl had joined me again.

The climbing was supposed to ease off at this point, so we left one rope tied to the anchor, and continued on with just its twin. As we scouted out the traverse over toward the keyhole feature, we discussed how lucky we continued to be with the weather and having the route to ourselves. From the reports of the weekend climbers, as many as 5 or more parties had been on the route each day.

In scouting out the traverse, I ended up climbing into a dead end. The moves were a little iffy to back down, so I managed to take thread the rope behind a large flake and rappel the short distance back down. It was a bit of a fight to pull the rope through the crack, and I had to snap one end upwards while pulling the other until it all feed through.

We traversed back over to our last belay and followed another set of cairns on a upper track toward the keyhole. One short section was a little exposed, where a point of rock forced one to lean out backwards while moving around it. Cheryl balked at first about climbing up and let Helen and I know that she could wait while we continued on. I told Cheryl that I was passing down a rope and belaying her up. With the extra security she easily made the move and we quickly finished the rest of the traverse to find ourselves below the keyhole.

The scrambling continued easily here and we actually followed a more leftward line toward another rappel anchor and not directly to the keyhole. Once on top a few boulder hops took up to the bench-like rock at the summit.

I checked my watch, 9:30 am, a 4 hour trip up filled with blue skies and we had the mountain to ourselves! What a great day. I took a group photo then snapped pictures in all directions. Still, we had the descent hanging over us and a few clouds building on the horizon. It was time to get moving back down.

Back at the keyhole space was tight and my plan to pre-rig Helen's and Cheryl's belay devices for the rappels was quickly going awry. I managed to rappel down 5 feet to a ledge after hooking up Cheryl. That freed enough room that Helen could get close to the anchor and I would watch as she threaded the belay device and locked the carabiner. With everyone safely clipped in, I rappelled down then held the ropes as a backup for Cheryl and Helen's descents. This rappel would prove to be the steepest and probably the most exposed during our entire trip down.

Once down, I pulled and recoiled the rope, then we carefully began the traverse trying to stay on solid rock. We kept to the lower of the two routes this time and did one very short rappel before reaching our cached rope. I had hoped that the two 30 meter ropes would allow us to make one continuous rappel of the two climbing pitches we'd encountered on the way up. From above I couldn't tell if the ends had reached all the way down or not.

I began sliding down the ropes, straightening them out as I went, but as I reached the top of the first pitch, I realized the ropes were just shy of touching down. So I went ahead and anchored myself and called down to Helen to start descending. After they had both reached the anchor, we pulled the ropes and rethreaded them.

Earlier we had noticed a mother and baby goat scrambling about below. I was just about to toss the ropes down when something made me pause for a second. Immediately the mother goat ran directly below us right over the spot I would have hit with the rope coils. I quickly imagined a direct hit on an adult goat and wondered what would have happened if she'd been entangled in the rope? After waiting for a few more seconds the baby followed like clockwork. Then I went ahead and released the ropes.

After 4 rappels we were now off the crux of the route. Once we reached the top of our first chimney, we began hearing voices and we quickly met two men and a women on their ascent. They said they were carrying a rope but no harnesses (?) and the woman said it didn't matter since she had two tall men to help her out. As I was pondering those climbing techniques I gave them my printout of the route photos and directions since they'd left theirs at their camp.

Climbing down rock is actually harder than going up, so I setup the rappel ropes for our descent of this gully even through we'd easily climbed up it. Once down we climbed back up to the notch then did two more rappels back to the snow bridge.

When I reached the bottom of the gully next to the icy snow I started looking around for a solid place to stand and have Cheryl and Helen rappel down to. I stepped back just a little too much however and lost my footing as I hit the snow slope. Helen and Cheryl saw me quickly swing out of view and the rope knocked down a few rocks. However, I was still attached the rappel rope with my brake and only took a short pendulum slide into some rocks. Uninjured I quickly answered the cries from above assuring them I was okay. More careful about my footing now, I found a solid stance and then untied.

All the rappelling done, we took off our harnesses and stowed the ropes. Then we traversed back away from the bridge and then followed the lower paths along the ridge back to the saddle. The clouds were building to a deeper gray and we hurried up the lose rocks back to Froze-to-Death plateau.

After a last look back at Granite, we quickly moved off hoping to reach camp before any storms caught us. A graupel storm did begin as we were 15 minutes from camp, but no electrical activity came along for the ride. After a water stop we hit camp and started our stoves for a hot cup of tea after a 9 hour round trip.

As we were celebrating a new group appeared on the plateau and I wandered over to talk to them. They were looking for a campsite, but didn't want to intrude on us. However, after I found out they had one three-person tent and a bivy sack for the 4 of them, I told them they'd easy fit at our campsite. Sure enough, the remaining rock wall protected their tent just fine, and an overhanging rock sheltered the bivy.

They were from Oregon and Utah and this was their leader Joe's 3rd attempt at Granite Peak. He asked for some information on the route and pulled out the same website printout that everyone seemed to carry up here. I found out another member of their party had thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail the same year as someone I knew and the degrees of separation quickly broke down.