Winter Scramble - Green Mountain (North Bend, winter)

With the ostensible albeit unsigned closure of the Big Spruce trail, we elected to explore a mountain bike approach to increase the chances of summitting. 

We did this trip on a moderate avy conditions day, with about 18" of heavy wet snow up higher from the 2 storms in the last week.  Most of the trip stays in trees or on ridge, and would likely be safe in most considerable avy conditions.

We found the CCC trail to be snow free.  Cross bike was adequate, though front shocks are advised. There are innumerable small drainages to cross, most of which can be ridden with caution, but do slow your speed, and about 5 creek crossings that require pushing or carrying the bikes.

Snow was consistent after the creek crossing.  No sign of recent tracks.  We put on snowshoes just past Absolute Last Promontory, and headed up the ridge, approximately following Tom Girard’s 2017 track.  Of note there is a mapping error so that the track appears to ascend by traversing slightly climber’s right of the ridge, but it actually mostly follows the ridge whenever possible.  This led us to drop off the ridge climber’s right from 3600‘-4000’, requiring some traversing on steep slopes.  On the return we stayed on the ridge which was easier and faster, only moving to our right once to get around a rock obstruction (at about 3800’ as I recall) before a short steep 30’ section that required facing in got us back to easier terrain coming down.

We donned helmets to protect from the frequent tree bombs as the weather warmed and the sun started to emerge.  Without a rain layer on, it was like standing under a cold shower.

The summit was so calm and sunny that we spent over an hour watching the clouds move in and out of the surrounding peaks.  We had panoramic views, just not all at once.  Lenticular clouds in vortices shedding off Rainier warned that this benign weather was just a brief pause.  The net 600’ down from where we left the bikes at the CCC trail allowed us to return the last 4 miles to the car in an hour.

Trip stats 16 miles (8 by bike), 4400’ vertical.  A fun trip with snow, good to combine with biking once the CCC road is snow free.