We decided to get an early start to avoid the snow getting too soft. Arrived at the trailhead at 4:30am.
The road in has some big potholes to navigate. Then there is one section that looked too sketch for the Suburu, so we backed up a bit and found a place to pull off an park. It was only about 0.2 miles to trailhead from there.
The first few river crossings are not bad right now. The big one did take a little work and wet feet.
The snow starts shortly after the valley begins. We were in three-season mountaineering boots the whole way from there. Brought crampons but did not use them. Some postholing but not horrible. The snow is soft enough, it is quite slow going. Farther up the valley there is a tremendous amount of older avalanche debris. The snow here is particularly hard to move on, as it is very chunky and uneven.
We accidentally ascended the gully before Headlee Pass. It was generally fine on the way up--the soft snow made for each kick-stepping. Getting to the top, however, it got a little sketchy, having to do a little scrambling then fighting through the trees to get over the pass.
The next section is not very enjoyable--the soft snow gives way a lot as you traverse the slope, and this is the area you are likely to punch through to the rocks below. Once getting up on the ridge, though, the snow conditions were much better. Snow was soft but decent the rest of the way to the summit, which we gained at 10:00am.
Coming down, the conditions were perfect for plunge stepping. We covered the ground that took 90 minutes to get up in 12 minutes coming down. Literally able to run part of it.
We were then able glissade often, except Headlee--looked too steep to be safe, but snow was agreeable to kicking steps down safely. Lots of good glissading once back down in the valley. Back to the car at 1:30pm for a 9 hour round trip.
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