I used this as a summer descent route after ascending through the Klamm (which, as Bryan notes, is not to be missed). It's true there are a lot of tourists eating traditional German fare at the huts, and I might have had a few beers myself.
Not having got a pair of snowshoes that I felt really happy with in Janaury 2006, I got as far as some way above Kreuzeck in January 2006 just using normal hiking boots. (MSR snowshoes were obtained soon after!). So I completed the rest of this route to the Schwarzenkopf summit during a walk up to Osterfelderkopf late in June the same year, when there was still some snow lying on a North facing slope at around 1720m.