Update on conditions.
My climbing partner and I headed up from the gate shown in the picture above (about 1 mile from trailhead) on Thursday. Lots of debris and ice in the road, so watch out! One other car when we arrived Thursday night. When we returned this afternoon (late Saturday) there were over one dozen vehicles park along the road near the gate.
Snow starts on road just after the last gate, continuing almost to summit via Mountaineers Route, with a few bare patches over first 1/2 mile from trailhead. There are still snow bridges in the gully below LBS, so ledges can be skipped. Received report from a hiker on Thursday that Ledges were icy when he took them. On way back down Saturday afternoon (today), saw a small avalanche scar that had released from the wall below the right hand side of the gully, well below Ledges start, that covered the hiking trail that we'd gone up Friday. Enough snow to injure or kill, it must have fallen from the cliff above it. About 20' wide. My guess is that it fell during the very warm afternoon temperatures. Highly recommend hiking up Gully in the morning, as snow is very firm. During afternoon hike down everything seemed to be collapsing.
Snowpack is very low, lots of exposed rocks through entire Mountaineers Route. Temperatures were warm during day, cold at night. Melt/freeze cycles in obvious effect. Some icy sections throughout but all could be avoided. Plentiful running water, including an easy-acces stream just below UBS.
Couloir has variable conditions. In some places the footprints make it like climbing steps, and ice axes easily slide in. In other sections the snow is so firm that technique must be used to stand on it, and ice axes unable to penetrate more than an inch (if at all). Definitely know what you are doing with crampons/axe when heading up the couloir. A fall would likely be fatal, and in some spots an ace would probably not dig in.
Lots of debris/rock fall in couloir. There is an obvious fall zone halfway up that should be moved through quickly. My climbing partner was almost hit by a softball-sized chunk of rock that he managed to dodge. I had a piece of ice almost knock my trekking pole out of my hand.
Final 150-200m of couloir is bare. On left is scree field. On right is relatively clean rock that is about 8 feet above the level of the scree field. Head up the left side of the clean rock about 30 meters past end of couloir snowfield to find an opening that allows you to get up onto the rock. The scree field is hard to go up, and is very dangerous to climbers below.
Class three/four route to summit from the Notch has an icy start. I climbed about 1/2 way up from the Notch, but partner wasn't feeling the ice at the start so we bailed. It'll be there next time. Observed two other climbers above us roping up the steep snow field just below the summit. I'd recommend bringing a rope and some pro for this section unless you feel really confident scrambling on mixed ice and rock, and steep snow.
The class two traverse to gain the summit ridge is thin, dangerous looking snow over top of hard white ice. Looks suicidal to attempt it. Class 3/4 to summit is only real option.
Beginning our return around 11 AM, we found the couloir much too solid to glissade. Most of the route is in the shade all day, so not really surprising. Climbing down almost as hard as climbing up, because feet harder to find.
Over all, great conditions, great weather, but icy on the final 400.
