Last time I was here, there was a bed of clouds and we knocked out both Big Horn and Cucamonga Peak in a single hike. I wasn't hiking with the quarantine fats yet at the time. Special thanks to the AllTrails review of this trail being a “post-holing hell” and is “harder than Whitney and C2C with snow” ???????????? because of you, there was actually nobody in Icehouse Saddle (on a weekend gasp!) and we had the trail mostly to ourselves.

The wind was relentless today. Blowing at 30MPH and maybe 45MPH at the summit. We had to take cover behind the rocks. Someone had a thermometer and it read 45°F, but with the winds, it felt more like in the lower 30s°. I didn't bring any gloves and my exposed hands were freezing. Thank God @angelow18 gave me some HotHand thingies.

Trail has some snow past the saddle but no post-holing. It was nice and crusty on the way up and a bit slushy on the way down. Some sketchy parts with exposure and bunch of down trees; bring spikes + poles for safety.