Ski tour of Massive's summer East Slopes route starting from the Mt. Massive TH. 4 AM start. Marginal (if any) freeze - 33F at the TH at start time. Snow started ~1 mile in along the Colorado Trail (at the first major bend, where aspect changes from SE to NE), but discontinuous for the first ~0.5 miles. Due to poor freeze, no flotation = serious postholing, so a lot of skis on/off BS in that first half mile ate up a lot of time and energy. More continuous and somewhat firmer snow after that made for faster travel. Trail has not seen enough recent traffic for a real trench, just a hodgepodge of postholes, snowshoe, and now skin tracks. Kind of a mess, really. Major creek crossings currently all have snow bridges, but probably not for long. From trail junction sign, we could not find the summer trail, so just picked our own adventure up to treeline. From treeline to the 13,900' saddle was easy skinning on well-frozen, continuous snow. A few rocky sections, but we were able to keep skis on the whole time. From the saddle, we skinned to about 14,200' and then stashed skis before a major steep step along the ridge. Summit ridge had a few fairly steep and exposed traverses that we were happy to have ice axes for. The snow felt more or less supportive and stable, but I wouldn't want to be on those if it was less so. Rest of the route had minor (ankle-deep) postholing along a totally snow-covered ridge - no sign whatsoever of prior passage. Summitted around 10:45; as far as I know were were the only people to summit that day.
The skiing was generally very good - the snow had corned up nicely, but was not too mushy until around treeline. We chose a conservative line from a few hundred feet above the saddle because we hadn't brought avy gear, but numerous more exciting options are available right now, including a descent off the summit proper, or the false summit. While we were able to piece together a continuous path more or less along where the summer trail goes, I don't think this will be possible for much longer (snow is getting thin on some of the tundra). Near treeline, we dropped into the Willow Creek drainage in hopes of an easier and more descent to the CT; initially this worked but the exit out through the aptly-named creek was a posthole nightmare. Rest of the CT required skins for the exit (too much up and down to glide out). Lots of postholing even on skis. Long, exhausting day, but happy to check that one off!
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