After daydreaming about climbing this mountain for five years I finally had the opportunity to make an attempt mid-week with one of my favorite adventure partners.  We prefer the fast and light approach to mountaineering and as such, left the overnight gear at home and tackled it as a car-to-car.

Road is in great shape and should not cause an issue.  Parking lot is obvious.

We jumped off at 0600, quickly found the logs that cross the river and began the grunt up.  I was not expecting such an established trail and we made good time up through the forest, hitting the boulder field in about an hour.  We followed the cairns for a bit but then our inclination to go straight up took over and we strayed a bit from the beaten path.  Eventually we noted this and made our way back to the trail.

You cross the creek a few times before climbing above the treeline so here is your chance to load up on water.  Didn't see many sources after this.  The snow begins in earnest right above the treeline and we made our way quickly over to Roush.  Some downlcimbing with hands is required here and a moat is opening up a bit at the base but it is navigated fairly easily.  

We then began the climb up in firm snow as it was in the shade of the ridge.  However once we hit the slopes that had been in the sun it was already turning pretty mushy.  Upon arrival on the glacier we decided we didn't need to rope up and kept our gear in our packs.  There was a bootpath across the glacier with a few signs of crevasses that are easily avoidable.

The last 1,000' of climbing up to the summit does take you around some larger crevasses but again, easily avoidable.  The knife edge rim is pretty tame at this time with a well worn path that is wide on the south side of the ridge.  By this time (11 AM) the snow was the consistency of mashed potatoes so we made a brief summit visit and then headed back.  

Some campsites are melted out on inspiration glacier but I didn't notice any running water.

We quickly followed our path back down but sticking to the trail the entire way this time.  Total time was 8:45.  

Probably ideal time for this route. Beautiful mountain and the whole area around. You will definitely need crampons and ice axe. Full report at link bellow.

Road conditions are great. A few bugs on the lower trail head. The log crossings are straight forward. The first 1800' feet through the woods is very muddy and slippery. The trail is straight up. Then the boulder field which is snow free until around 5500. At the end is a water source that we drank untreated. After the boulder field the basin is full of snow, which makes the crossing onto the Eldorado Glacier a little tricky. Once on the glacier we only saw two crevasses on the climb to base camp at 7400'. We had a very slow group, it took 9 hours to get to base camp. We spent the night, woke up at 3:45 am. Left camp at 5:10 am, and made it to the summit and back to camp in 2.5 hours. Once on the knife edge, the boot path walked along the left hand side, there was a 3 foot tall ledge to climb onto. Once on top the summit was about 3 feet wide by 15 feet long with sheer drops on each side. 

A golden dream of ice and snow awaits in the heart of the Cascades. It's Eldorado, the Queen of the Cascade River, rising tall above its immense ice cap, beckoning you to come and explore as you see it from your car, at a bend in the road to Marblemount, for no more than a couple of seconds.

This is a long trip that can be done in one day, if you're motivated, in good shape and you wake up very early, but it's best done in two days. You get the benefit of spending the night on a glacier at 7500 feet, with sweeping views of the Cascades in every direction, and you can take advantage of the hard morning snow which, unlike the afternoon slush, offers good purchase for crampons when you ascend the East ridge to the summit.

The camping spots are abundant on the large expanse of flat snow; there's no risk of getting too crowded. The night we spent there was unfortunately very cold; I had to put almost all my upper body layer clothes on, two pairs of socks and the Goretex rain pants over my hiking pants to get warm enough to be able to sleep.

Since the summit is actually somewhere on the famous the knife edge, only one team can go for the summit at one time, as there's no place to maneuver and go around people, and everyone has to wait their turn. An afternoon ascent can lead to long wait lines, whereas climbing the East ridge in the early morning means the mountain belongs to you, as few parties spend the night.

In these early days June there is still so much snow in the Inspiration glacier basin you'd be temped to think global warming was a myth, but alas, those beautiful glaciers are receding fast and won't come back once they're gone.