Hiked up to Ladies Pass via the White Pine Creek and Frosty-Wildhorse Creek trails. Reading up on them it sounded like they were very overgrown and difficult to pass. These two trails, while walking through high brush on a couple of short occasions, were generally in better shape than I was expecting. No problem following the trail.
Got to the trailhead about 8 and there were maybe 8-10 other cars there, nearly filling up the small parking area (there is road parking if needed). The road is not great, I'd recommend a high clearance vehicle. White Pine Creek trail is nothing to brag about, just a forest walk. Frosty-Wildhorse climbs quickly - it gets pretty steep in places. Still very doable through. Two trailside camps at 4 and 4.5 miles. Great lunch spot in a large area of boulders on the right side of the trail at about mile 5. There's an unmarked trail that heads left at about 6 miles, not sure where that goes, but stay right. The turnoff to Lake Grace is well-marked, but the trail is very brushy and hard to follow, from the two groups we talked with who had headed up that way. One group stayed there overnight on Saturday and said they were the only group there that night. Saw only one other group up to the intersection with Icicle Ridge.
The trail between Lake Grace and the Icicle Ridge intersection is gorgeous - wildflowers, snowmelt and streams. Icicle Ridge has a good amount of water this time of the year (we were worried and tanked up before we got to that trail) at least until you start climbing the big sweeping right hand turn to the pass. The trek from there up to Mary's pass was the highlight of the trip, gorgeous views, could even see the Olympics. Couple spots of snow with decent slides if you slipped but nothing that stopped us or others from traversing.
Camped at Lake Florence. Got there at 4 and were the first group to arrive that day (save the group who stayed the night previous) and got our choice of 4 total well-developed camp sites. There ended up being 6-7 groups who stayed at the lake that evening, everyone found a spot. Last group to arrive had to camp on a high rocky area on the approach to the lake. Mini-day hike to Ladies Pass, determined that Mary's pass was definitely the preferred over Ladies pass for views, but Ladies pass had cell service! The bugs once you were up over Mary's pass were atrocious. Thankfully the mosquitos respected my 25% DEET spray, but they were still everywhere. The flies unfortunately did not respect the spray, but we only encountered those on the Frosty-Wildhorse trail so it made for a couple annoying lunch stops.
Beautiful night sky at the lake. Lake Florence had a good amount of trout right near the shore, fun to watch them.
Everyone we talked to had either done Icicle Ridge via the Leavenworth side, or was hiking Stevens -> Leavenworth. The approach from the Stevens Pass side up Frosty-Wildhorse I would actually recommend - trail in pretty good shape, not many people at all, and good/great views once you pass 5000ft all the way up to the pass and down the other side. Happy hiking!
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