Crowds: Got to the trailhead at 8am, lot was full so we parked a short way down the road. By the time we got back to our car around 2pm cars were parked all the way past the intersection with the road you use to get back on I-90. We of course encountered other hikers but the trail never felt crowded.
Trail & snow: The trail is overall in great shape, and you can hike all the way to where the trail splits between the "main trail" and the boulder field route without crossing snow. We took the main trail, which still has quite a bit of snow. Until you get to the final switchbacks, the snow is not very steep and generally easy to walk on. The main dangers are the snow bridges forming over running water and rocks which are getting quite thin in places. We could see where others had punched through, so be careful of this.
On the main trail at the last push to the summit (starting around 5400 ft elevation) there is a steep snowfield that the main trail crosses a few times. We chose to just walk straight up this (the snow was soft by the time we arrived), but I don't recommend this if you aren't comfortable with steep snow travel. We had mountaineering boots and didn't use any traction, but many people we saw had microspikes on. There were glissade tracks down it as well, which is great if you know how to safely glissade but I wouldn't recommend this as your first attempt. To come down my boyfriend plunge stepped down the snow and I made my way down through the woods off to the side (you still need to cross the snow to do this). Many people were taking the boulder field route up & down as well, although it looked very slow (plus we had our dog with us who loves snow and struggles with boulder hopping).
There is still a large pile of snow at the summit that is getting quite thin in spots over the boulders, be sure to exercise caution when on it. Most people were hanging out by the lookout, but be sure to check out the views to the east as well!
Water: There are many small water crossings in the first mile of the trail, then nothing until around 2.5 miles in. At that spot there's a stream that was dry on the way up but flowing a bit on the way down (around noon). There's also a good stream around 3.25 miles in, and on the main trail around 3.5 miles. None of them were hard to cross.

Comments