Bandera Mountain, Ira Spring Trail - Mason Lake — Saturday, Mar. 6, 1999

Snoqualmie Region > North Bend Area

With the nice weather over the weekend, I was looking for a relatively avalanche safe route to the top of something. Dallas Kloke's book ""Winter Climbs: One Day Ascents"" lists the west ridge of Bandera as meeting those requirments (note - this is not the standard route that ascends the south face! The south face has extreme avalanche danger right now - please don't go up that route!), so off we headed to give it a try. The road to the Bandera (and Mason Lake) trailhead is snowed in, so we opted to park on the north side of I-90 at exit 42 (make sure you park off of the pavement - otherwise you're considered to be ""in the interchange"" and subject to towing). The first portion of the trip commenced with slash crashing and bush bashing from where we'd parked up about 700 feet until we came out onto the road to the trailhead. It's actually not that bad of a bush bash, but it gives you plenty of opportunity for barked shins and twisted ankles - be careful. Once on the road, we followed it to the Mason Lake trail turnoff, and started following contour lines up the Mason Creek drainage. Near where the large boulder field is in summer, we ascended some short, steep snow fields in the trees to gain the west ridge proper. From there, it was a pleasant ridgetop walk in mostly sunny conditions up and over the false summit and on to the true summit. Large conrnices kept us well back from the ridge where we could, and the sunny views made the effort worthwhile. (Note: Although this route offers ""low avalanche hazard,"" it does not offer ""no avalanche hazard"" - keep that in mind before heading out on this route and make sure you know what you're getting into.)