Thanks for the response BFR. That was almost my exact plan for the bike ride to take advantage of the cooler night temperatures. If I can line that up with a full moon that would be ideal, but I'll have to see based on scheduling. I appreciate the advice on the permit options. I'm not familiar with the likelihood of acquiring a permit through the harvest season, so I was erring on the side of attempting this before quota season - hence the late April tentative target date.
Okay, thanks for your suggestion about the route direction. As I do more research on the route in snow, I'll probably get a better idea of whether descending the MR sounds reasonable. And you already did a portion of my homework by linking the CA SWC plot
I know how to find Colorado but hadn't quite poked around for California's. As bobpickering mentioned above, if the snow is more of an ice/mixed condition by late April there's a fair chance I will just wait for that to melt out for the top portion, and enjoy the snow further below. I do love a good snow climb straight to the summit.
