this is info for the nw ridge with a winter variation to keep out of avy territory - we definitely saw either prime conditions for some pretty nasty slides (or slides that had already triggered) on various faces (no particularly single face direction) so there is a need to be careful. there were some pretty large cornices - it's just the usual thing...just don't be dumb about it. :)
there was a pretty good trench already in existence up to around 11,000 feet. we probably helped pack it down with our snowshoes. the trench suddenly disappeared, and we made our own, but with fairly steady winds (and upcoming snow predictions) i'm not positive of how long that will stay. there were some slight footprints we could see from previous climbers at points but not enough to follow. also be prepared to lose any standard trail a lot, but then again that is what climbing in snow is all about, right? :)
snowshoes helped and became necessary once we came out of the trees. there were two guys that were on our trail who didn't have them and were postholing a ton. we had to ditch our snowshoes for a scree slope and erroneously thought we wouldn't need them on the ridge. no question they are useful though you can get by without them. microspikes are pretty much a given.
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