Recommended gear: microspikes, ice ax or trekking poles
Recommended experience: Trail finding, crossing boulder fields in the snow
As soon as my partner and I turned off the exit ramp from 90, we hit snow. The snow in the parking lot is packed down, so we decided to put our spikes on there. (We took them off at the trailhead on the way down and both of us nearly went down in the 200 feet it took to get back to the truck.) The trail up to Snow Lake is 100% snow covered but easy to follow with some patches slick with ice. Starting from Snow Lake, we could follow the trail to Gem Lake but there were no visible footprints and trail finding was required at a few junctures.
We went up the right side of Wright Mountain as you're looking at it from Gem Lake. The boulder fields up to the summit were covered in about 6 inches of snow. I post holed once, but the boulders were still partially visible in most places making for relatively safe and easy passage. The ice ax was helpful to test the ground before taking a step and for some self belay on the way down but was not really necessary (trekking poles would work just as well). It took us less than an hour to summit and get back down.
On the hike back out from Gem Lake, the snow was heavy enough that we could barely see our tracks from the hike in less than 2 hours earlier, making trail finding a little more difficult. We saw only two other people heading towards Gem on our way out-- we had the whole lake and mountain to ourselves.
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