We had a nice hike on West Granite last night. It's a bit of a treck to get to the peak, no matter which way you go. We started at the Granite Mountain trailhead and took the Pratt Lake trail, which may have been sligthly longer than starting at the Talapus lake trailhead, but I wanted to try something new. It's a very gentle, winding trail, with some neat marshy areas (with bridges) in the middle. It's at least 3.5 miles to climb the first 2000 ft to a point up past Ollalie lake from which you take off towards the summit. We didn't find any hiker-trails, but the bushwack was pretty straightforward and the undergrowth is not that dense. Of the off-trail sections, less than 1/4 is in the woods, and the rest is climbing nice Talus with good views. The clouds were starting to move in making for some dramatic lighting, but they also caught us as we hit the summit and there wasn't much of a view from the top. if it was the top, which we're not sure of since the ridge which runs towards Granite vanished quickly into the fog. But we were past turn-around time anyway, so we called that particular knob the top and headed back down. We stayed on Talus longer on the way out which made for less bushwacking to hit the trail, and then it was just a long smooth ramble out to the cars at 10:30
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