Rattlesnake Mountain — Friday, Apr. 5, 2024

A mile or so before prospect point the snow starts in a very mild way. Then as you continue it’s deeper, up to around 8 inches in the clear cut area. We had white out conditions for part of it with active snow fall. I was grateful we were using our Gaia honestly as it’s been a while since I’ve done this trail and while most of it is VERY easy to follow, with the fresh snowfall we could have hopped off trail a few times without checking it. The mud and thin snow later as you descend to the ledges is pretty slick and I imagine this trail will see more ice and mud in the near future. We didn’t use traction and did fine with just poles but if you’re prone to sliding you may consider it, there were several miles in the snow for us. The trail had decent prints until grand prospect then were harder to see as the snow fell faster. Obviously several people once we passed the main ledge and no snow for a while before the main ledge.