"I hiked up to the West Granite summit in soft snow, going up on the NW ridge and down on the South ridge. From the Pratt Lake Trailhead up to the Talapus connector at 3700 ft is all fast hiking on hard-packed snow. As you go around and above Olallie Lake, there is an open snow field due North of the Lake. Here the tracks stopped, and I had to blaze through the deep snow around and up to the ridge. From here the trail goes left, but I went right, NE and then SE along the ridge. As the forest opens up, you face a much steeper ridge with snow fields on both sides, and a line of trees right along the corniced ridge. It's a slog, and when you get to the top, there is a right turn and more; and after that, a bit more, to the snowy, true summit of West Granite. Coming down was really fun, above the tree line, and then a bit of a long slog in the forest back down to the trail. From the summit, you can see a long, fine ridge going south, directly toward home. It turns out to be easy to get down to it, and out to a little peak at the end. I was wondering what would be on the far side, but I was happy to see snowshoe tracks! Someone had come up from the PL trail just up that far...." — markgarrett • Apr 3, 2017

"We left the trailhead at 7:45 with plans to summit West Granite, then across the ridge to Granite Mountain and the lookout. From the Pratt Lake trail we turned right just before West Granites South ridge, following it to the small southern peak about 500' below the summit. Well packed tracks up to around 8 people wide stopped here, and so did we for lunch. The last stretch was less painful than we had prepared ourselves for and the three of us were at the top before in no time. Panoramic views greeted us, and the wind subsided just long enough to truly enjoy the calm. We saw between 2-4' of powder over a fairly consistent and reliable crust and well packed tracks to 500' from the summit. A few somewhat exposed sections are dispersed along the final ridge, but I saw nothing posing serious avalanche risk that wasn't clearly avoidable." — Jeb • Mar 7, 2012