Steve, about the photo that shows me crawling over the willow branches: the location was well below the start of the E-ledges. Without snowshoes, we would have post-holed even deeper.
In the photo, it appears that I could have walked around the willow branches, but I tried that and it didn't work. There were some shallow snow bridges over running water that weren't strong enough to support my weight.
Here's a link to a few more photos:
Whitney MR photos, pkuroda
