Holy guacamole this was the hardest hike I've ever been on. The hike up to Icehouse Saddle was pretty normal, minimal snow. After the Saddle there was an average of like a few feet of snow, but it was pretty easy to stay on top of it.  I kept on seeing people turning back, though. Everyone told me it'd be too difficult to summit. I needed to summit that day, though, or else I wouldn't be able to do the Six Peaks in six weeks and I'd have to start doing my hikes from the beginning. So I kept going, and after Kelly Camp I saw why everyone was turning back.

Almost every other step I was post-holing up to my waist, no exaggeration. There was no way to tell where the trail was, the landscape was mostly flat. There was one set of footprints to follow, and those ended about a half mile from the summit anyway. My pace slowed to an infuriating crawl for the last few miles up. What was supposed to be a seven-eight hour hike turned into a twelve hour hike. My gaiters were useless, my boots and pants were absolutely drenched up to my waist. I was bruised all over from falling through the snow and slipping over and over and over again. I almost twisted my ankles on snow-covered obstacles on several occasions. The worst part was the exhaustion. My legs muscles were absolutely shot from struggling through the snow. There were parts where it'd take me ten minutes to go ten feet. As I type this days later, my legs still ache. I got a horrible sunburn too, but that's my fault.

Still, I did it. The views alone made it worth it- the peak rose above the cloudline on a cloudy day, and sometimes I got to be in the middle of a cloud, a rare experience in California. Mine were the only visible footprints when I got to the summit, meaning I was the first person to make it up since the snowstorm the previous week. I'm glad I followed through and kept on my pace to finish the challenge in six weeks. It would've been a bummer to have to restart because of some snow. The views were pretty worth it as well. I finished the hike very late – got back to my car at 10 PM with the help of my headlamp. I'll never hike a freshly snowed mountain without snowshoes again.