The north slopes route from Pine Creek is clear of snow except for a few small pockets of snow near the summit. We did not use snowshoes, crampons, or even microspikes. The standard route via Horned Fork Basin still looks very snowy, and a climber we met on the summit confirmed a considerable amount of postholing via that route. Nevertheless, he also reached the summit without snowshoes.
Although the north slopes route is snow-free, don't enter into it lightly. It requires a lot of bushwhacking and pathfinding and took us about 11 hours from Little John's Cabin on Pine Creek.
Images 1 and 2 were taken hiking up the north ridge. Image 3 was taken from the summit looking down into the Horned Fork Basin. Image 4 is of the connecting ridge from Harvard to Columbia.
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