We took the route up the ridge from Peggy's pond, where the bugs were as atrocious as expected. It can be confusing to navigate the many social trails near Peggy's. The Daniel ridgeline route itself is snow free with a few vague areas on the bootpath(s).
We took the alternate snow route as we thought it would be faster than stay on the ridge as I recalled the ridgeline route taking longer than expected on a previous trip. Although poles were fine on the mellow traverse of alternating snow and slabby rock, the snow gets steeper and reasonably firm as you gain the notch and we found the traction of an ice axe helpful along with our approach shoes. We got a later start, may have wanted shoe traction if we had been there in the morning.
IMO the crux is traversing around the east peak on mere footprint sized indents in hardpack but this is very short. A little thunderstorm weather excitement as we left the summit. A lovely and scenic route.
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