Fun day! We took the trail up to P3. It was snowing starting at about 4k feet. Gorgeous! The trail was pretty much snow free and easy to navigate. Socked in at the top to the south, but we were able to see Spider Lake on the other side of P3.
The ridge looked do-able, so we made our way across. There were some cornices on the north facing side we avoided. At this point, it was still fairly easy to navigate.
Once we hit the portion of the ridge in the trees we took out our ice axes and microspikes. We skipped the summit of Defiance only because it was socked in, we had both been up before, and we were mostly interested in doing the loop. Ice axes were very handy from here on out. I had one slip, and we talked to someone later in the day who had to use their pole to self-arrest (that pole was BENT!). The snow was fairly firm with only a few serious postholes. I had one posthole right over a rock that woke me up fast. Route-finding skills are necessary.
At about 4400 feet the snow became shallow and a bit easier to walk on. Once you climb out of the Mason Lake basin you are snow-free until you get back to the car. The clouds cleared up for us and we had views on the way back!
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