I attempted the Angel using skis and wish I had chosen snowshoes. I started at the Angel of Shavano TH and boot packed to the Shav/Tab TH (mostly mud, dirt, and patches of snow). I had to continue boot packing for at least another quarter mile past the Shav/Tab TH before I could put skis on, and then had to switch back to boots several times to cross patches of mud and rock. Once to 11,300' feet the current trench negotiates several downed trees. I ended up turning around at treeline - it took me much longer than expected to get to that point and the winds had started to gust. Snow conditions below treeline were pretty icy on the way up and by late morning it was still pretty icy, although starting to soften up where the sun was shining. All of the recent tracks I saw were from snowshoes. The only ski tracks looked like they were at least a week old - based on the amount of melting and that some of the tracks crossed areas that were now melted out to dirt and rocks.
The arm of the Angel that goes to the East Ridge (climber's right) does not go all the way to the ridge. The East Ridge itself looked pretty dry. It looked like snow was continuous to the South Ridge from the Angel. I couldn't tell how much snow the was on the ridge itself.
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