Hiked to Monitor Ridge with a small group leaving at 6am. First section of trail is nice and mellow, meaning most of the elevation gain is concentrated in the later sections. It was thick fog when we reached the boulder field and could barely see the next post to follow, but it's pretty easy to follow if the visibility allows. Once you leave the forested area there are many faint paths to follow, it's largely choose your own adventure hiking. The entire rest of the way it seems as though you could take many different but similar paths, even my own group was sometimes going different ways through the same section. I'm sure because of how hard this area is hammered with snow it would be difficult to make one defined path, but having everyone take their own path is definitely causing more erosion to the area. Not sure how to remedy that.
Made it to the ridge by 10am, stayed until 12, and made it back to the car by 2:30. Glissading patches made it much faster on the way down. It is entirely possible to reach the ridge without touching snow if you want, and ice axe is only necessary for glissading. But the snow patches are mellow enough you could just use a collapsed trekking pole too. No spikes required.
Beautiful views at the top and the dome was smoking which was neat. The total moving time for my group was about 5.5 hours car to car.
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