Painted Traverse has been on my list for few years now. Woke up Sunday morning and was wondering what is a short day alpine adventure that I can do and came upon Painted Traverse again and checked that the FKT has just been updated a week ago so decided that should be my goal for the day. Slowly made my way to the TH and started around 1pm. Packed microspikes as I read from Allen's report that the heather can be slippery when wet.
The forecast was for partially sunny and was mostly accurate. The cloud leve kept changing throughout the day but I was never in the clouds, just got a little mist at White Mountain. Trail up Painted was pretty decent shape despite many blowdowns.. somehow it was easy to hop over them. It had rained the day before so on the upper sections were a bit slippery and I lost the trail couple times and had to pull on heather and brushes to keep ascending. Decided not to put microspikes just for a short section. Made it up Painted 5 minuted ahead of FKT and headed for Magenta and was ahead 20 mins at Magenta. Smooth sailing and was feeling great. Headed to Black and did some steep traverses and downscrambles on heather and rock and dirt. Made it to the old glacial bed on the north side of Black. Took slightly longer than anticipated break to refill water on one of the glacial streams. Realized could not eat any solid food, as my mouth was dry and lost time trying. I was a bit dehydrated and chugged quickly three flasks and filled all my containers and continued up to black. My stomach felt a bit uneasy from the sudden influx of 1.5L water and struggled up Black and lost the time advantage but made it up and headed onward. Used the microspikes for the steep descent from Black on the heather slopes. Definitely helped a lot on the steep dirt too. Decided the the Painted Traverse must include Brown peak. It is color-named so why not. Probably added 10 mins at most and ~200 feet climbing or less. The traverse turned into proper ridge run/hike and terrain got much easier. Started feeling better and headed to Skullcap and made it with 5 mins behind the FKT. Kept going and made up some of the lost time and was again 10 mins ahead at Purple and Portal. By White mountain I was 15 mins ahead and started believing I can get it. Marmots were going insane around Portal and White which was nice. Saw a nice sunset and ran down feelign great. I was amazed at the quality of the trail, having done so much off-trail and shitty trails this summer, this was quite a relief. Turned on my headlamp halfway down the switchbacks and felt fairly strong till the end onlhy slowing a bit.
Detailed timing for each peak:
1:45 Painted
2:20 Magenta
3:50 Black
4:30 Brown
5:00 Skullcap
5:20 Purple
5:45 Portal
6:30 White
6:45 White Pass
8:40 Trailhead