Granite Lakes Road 2.18.04

Today's goal was for Revolution Pk. Which is Point 5454 just NE of the terminus of the Granite Lakes Rd at Point 5124. This approach is fairly long and I expected around 7 hours total time for summit and return. I expected some unsettled weather but I was treated to some fairly calm weather today. I made good time to the road crossing of Granite Creek, less than an hour. I ran across a man who had driven just past the creek and was sawing out some of the larger blowdowns that had fallen across the road. I am not sure who was more suprised to see who. He commented that I had a pretty hearty hike to make it to this point. I told him that I wasn't even half way, the look on his face made me wonder why I do what I do. We parted ways with the man saying "" have fun"" in a way that really showed his lack of ability to understand why anyone would walk that far. I hit sustained snow around 2500ft, I followed a old snowshoe track without the need for snowhoes until around 3000ft. I then reached a point were I felt snowshoes were needed, too bad for me one of the pivots broke shortly after putting them on. I like the MSR snowhoes but this is the 3rd time I have broken a pair in the same spot. With plenty of time and a long ways to go I continued on to around 3400ft. At this elevation with new snow and with the trail having less traveler's the going without snowshoes became more difficult than what I was really in the mood for. I stopped for a short while and then returned to the truck without incident.