Tried a ski tour to Kelcema 12/23/2022 and had a pretty good day out. Got to the trailhead a bit before 8am, toured up for 2 hours to a bit before the hairpin turn, back down in 30 minutes or so.
Mountain Loop Highway was pretty rough the last few miles in the early morning, basically a few inches of ice that had turned to slush by late morning. Also a number of trees and branches in the road although crews had already started working on clearing them so it was passable. I made it over the embankment from the road to the parking area with a stock Subaru Crosstrek but was sketched out by the soft snow and decided to back out and park on the road instead. If you've got better tires, another person, and recovery gear just in case you might be able to manage the parking area.
Toured up the 4x4 tracks which held nicely for a pretty good ways. The newer tracks stopped by the old washout so I broke trail through a bit of a rain crust after that. Made it to the creek crossing before the hairpin turn and it looked questionable enough that I decided to turn back. It was hard to tell how thick the ice was and how deep the water was beneath it. You might be able to step across in skis but I didn't want to risk breaking through and getting stuck or freezing my feet off trying to get back down. Skied the skin track and other side of the 4x4 tracks back down. I'm a new skier and being trapped in the ruts with no good way to use edges to control speed was pretty terrifying. I'm sure a more experienced skier could make easy work of it but you might want to wait for fresh pow and get out before the trucks if you're new to skiing like me!
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