Mailbox Peak

I got the trailhead at 5:45am this morning. No other cars were there. I headed straight up the trail. The trail is in great condition after the past few days of warm weather. There was no mud to speak of. There is still snow above the 4000' level, but most of it is off of the trail. The summer section at the top of the breakout is still covered. So when you get to the breakout head up the winter route (straight for the top). There was a small section of snow, then a section of rocks. Then a long section of snow up to about 4300'. This section is steep, but has a lot of boot tracks to follow. This morning it was still crunchy and I did not need my micro spikes. From 4300' to the top the summer section is completely uncovered. There is snow off to the left (as you are going up) that is still quite deep, but it is completely avoidable.

One word of caution. There is a steep slide down the snowfield next to the snow steps, it is very steep and ends in the trees with rocks. I didn't have my ice ax so I didn't try it. It looks like you could get going very fast down that if you weren’t too careful. Best not to try that unless your evac insurance is paid up.

So I reached the top at 7:50am and I did not see a single person on the way up. On the way down I counted 72 people and 5 dogs. The parking lot was packed when I got there at 9:20am