Happy Easter!! We made it! There was some snow on the road on the way up, but the trail was fairly clear until about 2,500 feet where we ran into some snow. Made it acrossed the first gully at 4,000', ran into deep snow and postholing around 4,700'. Tried it with snowshoes, but still postholed!! Some steep slopes toward the top. We made the summit in about 4 1/2 hours. The weather turned nice about 3/4 of the way up. Very enjoyable at the top! Got down in about 3 hours. Well worth the effort.

Mt Dickerman is near Barlow Pass on the MountainLoop Hwy. The highway is clear, by the way. Thetrail is clear or has little snow for about 1mile. But at the top, it's about 77.34 feet deep,approximately. It sure is a ton o' fun to""posthole"" in snowshoes on the way down. Well, Ihad a blast, anyway. Even though I got a latestart (1pm), I made it back with plenty ofdaylight. Some parts of the trail are on prettysteep sideslopes, and the last couple pitchesare straight-up (the usual winter route, Iunderstand). So the 4 mile route is probably morelike 3.5 in the winter. Enjoy! [Online-Editor note: 77.34 feet of snow' Hmmmmm.]

The weather was not promising, but we went anyway. The first hour of the hike it drizzled, but not enough to dampen our spirits. The trail became entirely snowcovered in about 1.5 miles. The tread then was pretty solid and we felt we would have a good chance of making it to the summit. The first dangerous gully was crossed without mishap on a pretty solidly packed trail. Past that the trail was not so obvious and some of us decided to head straight us while others turned around to try to relocate the trail. Once the snowshoes were on, the first step on to the undisturbed snow was not comforting. Below the new snow layer was a loose wet layer. After ascending for about 5 minutes in small trees, we sighted the group who had chosen straight up (in others' tracks). They were now putting on their snowshoes and finding the undisturbed snow not very encouraging. We would have to traverse a steep hillside, then cross the 2nd dangerous gully before the terrain became gentle enought to reduce the risk. We regrouped and ate lunch as the drizzle stopped and the clouds lifted, granting us views of the mountains south of us. ,In a hastily dug snowpit an isolated column sheered quite easily about 3 feet down. From our lunch spot Big Four was resplendent. It also made a great noise as we were hiking out.

Mountain Loop highway is clear of snow on the road up to the trail head. Entire trail is covered in snow. Lower parts have older crusty snow and the upper regions are getting new snow constantly. The trail is worn in enough to to follow until the base of the first large cliff. Snow base here is a good five feet at least. There was recent avalanche activity, and a constant stream small powder ones,in the avalanche chute. It seemed to risky to cross, especially because the trail was not broken in any farther.

We were able to make use of the good weather today and hike to the top of Mt Dickerman. We were able to hike without snowshoes until just past the spot where the trail takes the sharp left at the stream (4400' and about 5' snow here) to get on the W ridge of the mountain. We followed the approximate trail location to the top and had the summit to ourselves, arriving at 3 p.m. We ate and looked and sat in sunshine on our insulated pads in a very light breeze waiting for the setting sun to put on its colorful display on the snowy peaks and wispy clouds. At 4:30 p.m. we headed back down the mountain as a thin cresent moon and two planets were showing over Big Four mountain. Dropping 1000' before we had to use headlamps to safely hike the totally dark trail in the trees. Returned to the trailhead at 6:30. Great afternoon-evening trip in good weather.