The goal today was to summit, come hades or high water, given that I'd attempted the trail 2 times prior to today in the past year. I was successful in nailing the weather window, given things seem to be worsening on the avalanche condition front.
First off, I started ascending up NF-4315 from the Sno-Park near Cayuse Camp at around 06:30. It was a brisk 24 degrees F at the car, per my dash thermometer.
I booted my way up in my Trango Towers, electing to follow the road as much as possible (out of morbid curiosity). Turns out, as expected (since I looked at CalTopo earlier), the road is indeed much longer. Knowing now what I didn't know at the start of the day, heading up the road instead of donning my snowshoes and climbing made for a trudging journey.
Around 4k', I donned my snowshoes and pushed up the old snowshoe track Birb and I made last week, along with some old snowmobile tracks, but was a bit more aggressive in areas pushing directly uphill (as opposed to switchbacking) since I was flying solo.
Once I got to the top section of NF-4315 before it joined Sasse Ridge Trail, I pushed up the ridge out of habit, then rejoined the road/trail since the packed down snow from the snowmobiles made snowshoeing easier than having to break trail.
The snowmobiles stopped at the official trail, however, forcing me to break trail, so I took the ridge out of habit to cut the distance and to mitigate potential avalanche concerns.
I traversed high across the ridge, noting wind scoured snow and cornices. For whatever reason I decided to take a gamble and try to push low, but the wind slab-like conditions persisted, so I tried pushing up high as quickly as possible to avoid drainage crossings along steep embankments.
Once I got back under the trees/lower angled slopes I let out a sigh of relief and continued pushing up towards the Jolly Mountain summit.
The summit was socked in, so I couldn't make out the exact conditions from afar, but I did my best to stick to the ridge spine to mitigate avalanche risk.
I avoided stepping under a few cornices, got up to the summit, then quickly retraced my steps (there wasn't a point in sticking around since it was a viewless day and it was a bit windy).
The only deviation I made was that I stuck high up the ridge to further mitigate avalanche concerns.
I was surprised when I got back to the Jolly Mountain/Sasse Mountain trail junction since someone had snowshoed up the ridge using that route (as I discovered last year this path is risky in the winter time; I don't advise it).
On the way down I took the skier's route to cut the distance and avoid the road walk, since it had gotten a bit warmer, and did some minor "telemark snowshoeing" on the way down :).
Avalanche Concerns
Primary avalanche concerns were wind slab/cornices; the qualitative observations I made were reported to NWAC.
Road Conditions
The road to the Sno-Park is a bit icy, but passable by those who understand how to navigate the ice. NF-4315, however, is very much snow covered.
As tempting as it might be, please don't drive up the road: individuals (snowmobile users, skiers, snowshoers) rely on its stability and any disruption makes traveling on it more difficult. It's not a groomed trail like the start of the Sasse Ridge Trail by Ronald, which means WYSIWYG for the conditions.
Furthermore, some road cutting looked like it had taken place (did someone get stuck?), which might have ruined the road bed :(.
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