Got an early 4am start and snow was firm enough. Thanks to people who went before me kicking nice steps in, making it much easier. I brought crampons but never needed to put them on.
By the time I came down shortly after noon, the snow turned quite soft, which made for some nice glissading, but I postholed to my thigh a couple of times near the tree line, and had to dig my leg out. And the last ~2 miles in the wooded part was a lot of slip and slide due to soft snow.
The people going up in the afternoon looked like they were having a hard time getting footing with soft snow.
The parking lot was 80-90% full by the time I got back to it, surprising for a week day. When I checked the permit availability just the day before, it said 99+ was still available. But I guess right now there's 350 daily permits until 5/14, and then it's only 150/day after that.
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