Group of 4 started the road walk to Halfmoon TH around 1 pm on Sunday (5/25). There were several small patches of snow on Notch Mountain road starting ~0.5 miles past Tigiwon Community House until the TH. We arrived at the TH ~4 pm. 2 of us were already wearing alpine boots and gaiters and were unconcerned with the snow starting at the TH, but I and my partner were in trail runners initially and managed to wind our way around snowdrifts and select thinly covered sections of trail for the first 3/4 of a mile. Around 10900', snow was too ubiquitous for just trail runners and too soft to support the weight of our team wearing alpine boots alone and we all switched to snowshoes. Somewhere between 11200' and 11400' post-holing in our snowshoes became pretty common until we got to the top of Halfmoon pass (~5:45 pm). The next 3/4 of a mile was quick-ish but painful; there was still plenty of post-holing in snowshoes as we traversed the northside of Notch mountain and the ankle strain everyone experienced while side-hilling could be described as cruel and unusual punishment.

It was pretty warm the prior week, so there were only occasional and vague suggestions of ski and/or boot tracks and as a result we overshot some wiggles in the trail and had to route find through the trees until we rejoined the trail around the 2.25 mile mark (from the TH) - as is usually the case, on the way out I couldn't believe we missed this bend in the trail... it was so obvious. The rest of the way down Notch mountain was relatively easy and dry so we all stashed our snowshoes; the trail was dry with snowdrifts piling up at the elbows of switchbacks and one or two soft heaps of snow obstructing the straightaway of switchbacks. I think we crossed East Cross Creek (~10700') around 8 pm. Campsite 3 (a sharp right turn immediately after the creek crossing) was covered in uneven snow so we opted for Campsite 4. Site 4 was clear of snow and fit all three of our tents (2x1P & 1x2P) without issue (it probably has tent space for 4-6 small backpacking tents), but it was a little muddy. We setup camp and completed our camp chores, stuffed our faces with dinner and turned in a little after 9pm.

We all woke up to our 3:30 am alarms, stuffed our faces again and packed our essentials for the climb. The plan was to summit via Cross Couloir and descend North Ridge, so we left most of our equipment in camp and set out a little after 4 am. We crossed the stream that drains the pond west of East Cross Creek and that was basically the end of things. We started post-holing (we couldn't be higher than 10800' at that point) as we arrived at the steep ascent out of the valley. The initial ramp we had to ascend was steep and covered in a lightly crusted snow that wasn't holding anyone's weight, so we immediately stopped since we didn't know what was beneath the snow and risk of injury became an obvious concern. We waffled about what to do for ~10 minutes and eventually opted to do some additional route finding exploration - it looks like there might be another viable, albeit still steep, path up 50-100 meters west of the trail, but by the time we found it the morning sun was starting to light up the valley and we knew, even with ideal navigation from that point forward, we probably wouldn't have enough time to summit and descend before the forecasted snow moved in. So with some mixed feelings we made our way back to camp to repack our bags and make the trip out between 6 and 6:30 am. Conditions during the climb out of the valley and back to Halfmoon pass were great. All the snow we post-holed the prior day was nicely crusted and held our weight. As you might expect, the Eastside of the pass was a bit mushy in parts even below treeline, but very manageable even without snowshoes. We took lots of breaks on the way out and started down the road around 10:30 am

Reference Info:

• Used the gpx file provide for the Cross Couloir route
• Downloaded route description and photos