Thinking of attempting Martha this weekend. Anyone been up there lately? Any advice based on the snow conditions this year when it'll be in best shape?

Thanks.

Did you go up? thinking about it this weekend.

We didn't wind up going because of the weather last weekend, but we're heading up on Saturday. Maybe we'll see you there.

BTW, any idea if we should bring snowshoes? Thanks!


edit: addition

might be going up saturday as well. Eli Helmuth reported that the park got "pounded" with snow. Not sure what that means for the trail to Chasm Lake. Normally it's pretty well packed.

Also not sure what that means for avy conditions.... CAIC will update their forecast later today (friday afternoon).

I'd bring floation. I heard from a friend out there yesterday that it is probably needed until we get a good freeze/thaw cycle back. My guess is that the northern mountains aren't going to be ideal this weekend, I'm thinking at least as far south as torreys or the sawatch will have better snow conditions but we'll see.

We climbed Martha yesterday and there is still a lot of unconsolidated snow up there. Luckily there was another party in front of us to dig out a trench about thigh deep. But there was enough spindrift coming down to fill in the tracks at the start. The ice wasn't bad and felt quite secure even though it was a little thin to place screws. Mostly used rock gear and only a couple of stubbies. We did it in about 2.5 pitches and simul-climbed the rest. We used snowshoes up to Chasm junction but probably could have got by without. We didn't put them back on for the descent.