We did Sun Ribbon last Saturday, we were on the snow at about 7am and I was sure happy to have crampons AND an axe! The snow was hard (like too hard to kick steps) and pretty steep!
I would go along with Vitaliy M and say between 35-40 degrees in sections.
There were some traces of previous steps and some cupping as mentioned but not enough that I would have felt comfortable w/o the tools.
Guessing there is about 200-300' of gain on snow so again...pretty nice to have the tools!