While all the cool kids went up the beaten path to Mt. Dickerman, I went up Perry Creek towards Mt. Forgotten. After reading reports of heavy snow at Kelcema Lake, and having seen plenty of snow in the valley the last time I was there a few weeks ago, I brought my snowshoes thinking that I'd simply trudge up the valley and work my way up through the forest to Mt. Forgotten. This is not how things actually worked out.
Mountain Loop Highway is open up to the pass. There was a lot of frost and some patches of black ice, and the bridges were sketchier as you'd expect. I had no trouble with my FrontWD compact manual driving carefully. I got to the trailhead shortly before dawn and twilight provided plenty of light for getting my boots on. There were 5 other cars, all at the Mt. Dickerman side of the lot.
I hit the trail minutes after dawn. The road section was barely damp, and the snow was only patchy until about 2560'. At this point, I was following a well defined path that followed the trail; someone had been up the day before. Once I got to 2840', my kindly benefactor turned around and I was breaking trail though about 6" of snow. By the time I got to Perry Creek, it was about 12" deep and the crossing was easy. Once across the creek and to the campground and as far as I could see, the snowpack was consistently 12"-16" deep under the trees, with some shady sections sporting an icy crust, so I put on my snowshoes at the campsite believing that the snow would only be getting deeper the higher up I went. Oh, how very wrong I was.
I took the snowshoes off just a few hundred yards later. Under the trees, the snowpack varied from "nonexistent" to "shallow, slushy and slippery" to "deep, slushy and slippery". By the time I got to the watercrossing at ~3580' I stashed my snowshoes offtrail to save weight. The route was easy to follow, but the bare parts were getting rarer. I spent as much time slipping sideways as I did going forward - the snow was like ballbearings packed in jello. I don't think spikes would've helped - the snow would probably compress before the spikes reached anything firm, and as soon as you'd push off the spikes would break free and you'd be sliding again. As I continued to climb, I ran into deep fields in the patches exposed to the sky. I was postholing up to my waist in these - but they were only a few yards across, so I kept going. The bare parts of trail became scarce and the snow was getting even more sketchy in the afternoon sun. I encountered only 1 small blowdown, easily cut back. By this time, Every. Single. Step. Was. An. Effort. Somehow I eventually made it to the switchback, and for a while the route was conveniently demarcated by some recent elk tracks - but still got harder and harder to slog through as the snow was getting wetter and deeper in the gloriously warm, bright sunshine. Even though the overall hike impression can be summed up as "death march", I will forever treasure the feeling of standing in snow up to my knees, with the warm sun shining down on me, surrounded by the winter forest and fresh air.
I finally called it a day at about 4550' at 12:24. I had only gotten about 2.5 miles in the previous 2 hours; at this rate getting to the meadows would mean I'd have to contend with coming downhill through this slop in the accelerated twilight of the valley. I fixed some Chef du' Chataeu d' Mont and a strong cup of coffee and headed back down. This was a much faster traverse than coming up. Following my established route helped, but mostly I was sliding - not gracefully enough to call it 'boot skiing' or 'glissading'. It would have been very easy rip a knee apart and/or or go head-over-heels straight down the hill; I'm glad I was doing the descent in full daylight.
What took 2:14 to go up took 54 minutes to come down. A couple of people had been to the falls after me, and their assistance beating the trail down helped me maintain my momentum. Another pair of people had come up to about 2800' and turned around, after that the trail was a wide trench. After the snow gave up, it was a simple quick dash back to my car with about 45 minutes of daylight left. I counted 35 cars in the lot.
Mountain Loop Highway had less frost and no black ice on the way back and the bridges were not icy, but that was due to the unseasonably warm day.
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