Done as a day-hike from a base camp at Big Beaver Boat Camp (we canoed in, launching from Diablo Lake Colonial Creek Campground launch, portaged along Ross Dam, and paddled up Ross Lake).
The segment of Ross Dam Trail between Big Beaver Trail and the turnoff to Pierce Mountain was very nicely maintained. The start of Pierce Mountain Trail was easy enough to follow, though I can see that as the spring/summer goes on how it can be difficult to follow after plants brush out. Blowdown started to become a bigger issue the farther up Pierce Mountain Trail we got - but we were expecting this. The ranger at the WIC who gave me our wilderness camping permit warned me it wasn't maintained. The last ~half mile or so that we got to (so starting ~1.5 to 2 miles east of Pierce Mountain Camp) was really badly overgrown with Mountain Alder - super annoying to climb around/over/under. At about 4700 ft of elevation, the trail started to be fairly covered in snow.
We made it up to just under a mile from the Pierce Mountain Camp, but decided that with the snow and long hike back it wasn't worth route-finding and slogging through the snow (even though we were prepared and had gear for it), especially knowing we had the rough trail to walk back through. We did manage to make it up on the ridge between Pierce and Sourdough, though, and found a rocky snow-free outcropping to take a short break at before heading back down to camp.
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