Beautiful sunny day. No snow to be concerned with before the last half mile in the forest. Somewhere in there I relented to friendly pressure and put on the microspikes, and indeed they already were helping. The hike out of the forest became more difficult hiking through snow, and with some route finding issues in the snow. (Leaving the forest, we employed our route-losing superpowers and followed the big snow bootpath straight when we should have turned left ...) I expect enough snow will be gone in a week or two that the trail will be perfectly clear and easy everywhere.
Lovely views from the saddle, and that little rock knob to climb on the left/Eagle-side of the saddle. About 2/3 up the knob, you get the nice view over the Nisqually. On the saddle, you have to walk to the right (Chutla side) a bit to get a great view of Rainier and a nice sense of its massiveness. You see Little Tahoma peeking over the ridge.
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