Parked at the Bessemer Gate, out of the way. Walked the Bessemer Road up to where the CCC trail takes off to the left on a nice new bridge. CCC is in perfect shape. All creek crossings do-able with a few getting your feet a little wet. The DNR has been through at some point recently and cut the brush away.
After perhaps 4 miles of easy walking, we found the obvious turnoff for the Green Mountain trail. Now the climbing starts in earnest. This is a really good road-to-trail conversion. Much better than Dirty Harry's Peak, which is a mess of big loose rocks. This is a very pleasant uphill grade with nicely packed surface. We hit a small patch of snow right before the nice big bridge, then more as we went up. By the time we were to the Promontory view points there was perhaps a foot of soft snow-cone snow. No spikes or other equipment necessary.
On the way back we took the other (.5mile) spur to a viewpoint indicated on my Gaia map. More snow in this area and we were punching through a foot every step. The view was underwhelming, but there was a difficult creek crossing along the way to keep things interesting.
On a very warm Sunday, we saw 4 other parties all day. About 13 miles total.
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