The last two times I've been on the main trail have been in snow. On the earlier hike, the snow was only holding in the Consultation drainage. However, the latter was a spring ascent - I ended up turning around after climbing the Chute.
Anyway, it began to snow during my descent on the earlier occasion, and having missed the trail in the section being discussed, I decided to backtrack and downclimb to Consultation. I then just post-holed and slid down to Trailside meadow and continued on the (clear) trail.
For the spring ascent, I didn't even follow the trail above LP lake. People had been attempting summits the previous week, so there were boot tracks to follow. When the snow level if high enough - maybe 3-4', it's easier to just follow the Consultation drainage and forgo that faint part of the trail altogether.
PS There was a party of 6 that arrived at Trail camp later in the day that didn't bother to try and summit the next day. I ran into them @ Outpost while they were drying their gear. Turns out during their descent, they missed the cut-over to Mirror altogether and descended via the waterfall to Outpost. They were happy to be back on level terrain!
Snow conditions are weird - they are both more dangerous, yet also provide some buffer - like descending next to a waterfall - because the talus is buried and you can crawl down on top of the snow.
