Got the snowflake for Elbert yesterday. Some light snow overnight covered the 4WD road and the trail below treeline with a couple inches, but all that melted away by evening. Bootpacked trench intact all the way up to the first wooden fence at treeline, 11.8k elevation. After this the trench was covered by wind-blown snow. I donned snowshoes from here and headed directly to the saddle on the ridge at 12.4k. The snow through this section was the same throughout the rest of the ridge: a mix of supportive wind-scoured crust, less-supportive hollow-sounding crust, and some looser stuff that sunk ankle-deep.
I left my snowshoes at 13.1k on the bare flat rocky area but could have dropped them earlier, there was now a pretty visible and sturdy bootpack through the snow for the most part. I ascended the exposed summer trail for a ways and then traversed south to hop along some rocks the rest of the way to the summit. Spent almost 30 minutes at the summit with no wind. All day I only felt slight winds on the saddle at 12.4k and while crossing the slope to get there in one small area, definitely less than the expected forecast.
For the descent I traversed to the north end of the summit and went straight down the slope, I figured the snow would be a little more supportive on this side of the ridge. I opted taking the closed trail from the flat area at 11.5k back down to the main trail near the ponds. I noticed a bootpack going up this way on the ascent and saw a second trench heading down this way at the 11.5k marsh area. Outside of winter there's a ton of debris placed across the trail but several feet of snow covering all of this made for a quick and direct descent on a still well-packed trench. I wish I had come up this way as well, I felt a bit antsy about a large, loaded rollover the that the last two switchbacks on the main trail passed though.
Great day for my 10th winter 14er this season! Had the mountain all to myself. The nearly-full moon on the return casting shadows of the massive aspens across the 4WD road was especially cool. Left with some amazing pictures from the summit and only a slight sunburn!
              
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