Tried to catch the sunrise on Mailbox today. It ended up being just cloudy, but the amount of snow made it a memorable trip as it was a trail-breaking slog from the boulder field onwards.

Snow depth varied a bit, usually no more than knee-deep but the wind had drifted the snow and I found myself struggling almost waist-deep at times. With how fluffy and unconsolidated it was, it took some crawling and floundering to make headway at times but there's a bootpath for now as a fairly large group made it up with me! All good fun!

The rest of the old trail was business as usual, roots, rocks, muddy spots.

Used microspikes and poles, wish I had had my snowshoes for those last few hundred feet of vertical!

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The main thing that's new since the last trip report is that Mailbox got some powder last night, which made for a slippery trip up, even with spikes. The trees have some pretty heavy snow on them and by early afternoon as it warmed up, a lot of that was showering down onto the trail. There were some pretty stiff wind gusts and wind chill at the top. I ended up not staying at the peak very long today and eating my snacks in the trees at the base of the talus field instead. The weather, snow and clouds made for some impressive scenery.  

My rough guess on snow depth at the peak, measuring with my poles, was around 2' 

Awesome trip up to the summit with Aferrenberg, as we had some great weather and got some nice views. Snow started around 3200ft or so. Once we got out into the open the trail conditions were great as there was a nice boot path in the snow all the way up to the summit. The snow was very grippy with microspkes which made the ascent and especially the descent quite pleasant. Fantastic day, and it was fun to see some friendly faces on the trail!!

Made multiple attempts to see sunrise from Mailbox and always his misfortunate conditions but today a success. Started hiking at 0540, few other people already were on the trail. Trail is snow free, muddy in couple spots but really in a great condition considering recent rain fall. Beautiful sunrise view from the top were shared with just 3 other hikers. Low this trail for convenience and great work out. 

Wildly snow free. We enjoyed taking the old trail up and the new down