The icicle creek road is open all the way to the trailhead. The first mile of this trail is deceptively easy and the trail is padded with rust-colored pine needles. There is a relatively new bridge crossing the creek there. It starts to get a little steeper. Around mile 2 or so, you cross the creek again, this time no bridge, but some good rocks to hop across at least when the water is low. Then it is through the somewhat overgrown cover as the trail starts to climb steeply. A fabulous view of the chatter creek basin opens up. I hit snow here and it continued to get deeper as I climbed the more exposed talus areas. The trail switchbacks up on the rocks, and now we were breaking trail in a foot or more of snow. I was able to find the trail, or at least what I thought was the trail almost all of the way, maybe a couple interpretations when I neared the creek for the last time. There is a small snowfield in the basin below Grindstone Mtn. Snowballs littered the trail, rolling down like cinnamon rolls and coming to rest in the only flat spot which was the trail tread. We punched on, post-holing in now knee deep snow and made it to the saddle below cape horn, ~6700’. According to the map, the trail skirts the north side or the ridge there, but there was no trail that I could see in the deeper snow on the north face. I aborted on going any further, and headed back down before the snow got much softer. As I descended, there were others coming up now in my tracks. But I doubt anyone made it all the way to the Icicle Ridge Trail without climbing gear and previous trail knowledge.

Reached the trailhead (now again accessible by car!) around 10:30am. Would have been car #10, except that I had parked opposite the Chatter Creek guard station.

The trail up to where it crossed Chatter Creek the second time (this time without a bridge, but trivial to cross) was in good condition, no blowdowns, just a few brushy sections. There were a few rougher sections up to Grindstone Pass, but the trail was still easy to follow. Beyond Grindstone Pass, part of the trail was under a thin layer of snow (later: slush). There were no tracks yet, so I followed the parts of the trail that I could see, and the cairns. This got me to Lake Edna on the shortest possible (though not official) route. Followed the official route on the way back; this turned out to be less of a detour than the trail I had on the map (both on MyTopo and Northwest Topos 0.17).

There were lots of blueberries on the slope approaching Grindstone Pass, but I can't vouch for their tastiness. Nice fall colors, and several of the larches in the basin beyond Grindstone Pass had turned golden, but most were just starting to turn. I heard quite a few (and even saw some) Pikas.

Encountered a dozen or so parties on the trail.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/eric.jain/LakeEdnaOctober2011
Tracklog: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/120023786

The Icle Creek road is blocked by a washout about 1 mile short of Chatter Cr trailhead so the normal 5 mile hike to Icle Ridge is now 6. The trail is open to the ridge with only one blowdown. It is steep and due to the heat we camped at about 5200 in a place we called mosquitoville. Once on the ridge it is snow almost everwhere but a dry campsite is open just down from the ridge. We explored around for a few days but could not get past Ladies Pass due to a rock hard steep snow patch. Cape Horn was snow free to the top but the Mormen Lakes were mostly frozen.
I strongly recommend to take an ice ax and even crampons if you want to travel during the early morning hours before the snow softens.

THE ROAD IS CLOSED due to a mudslide at Foruth of July Creek. The road is barricaded at Bridge Creek Campground. Call or check to see if the road is open before you come.