Leinad E. posted this picture on facebook, with the caption: "Jan 2nd 2015! HNY!"
That is the door to the summit hut. The snow gets inside during a storm by wind blowing the sugary ice crystals through the cracks around the door!
LE (aka Dan) reported more on their climb: "It took us total 9 days, (Dec26-Jan3), with waiting at Trail Camp for over 2 days in the storm for window to summit, which also took another 2 days to travel up the switchbacks to summit and back down chute to Trail Camp. After the storm heading back from Trail Camp to Portal, evidence of avalanches all over the switchbacks as well covered our tracks up. We saw no one for the nine days except for a man on second day at Mirror Lake who turned around from heading higher due to winds and passed another man on our way out at Outpost Camp on the 9th day. We were knee to waist deep in snow most of the time above Lone Pine Lake. Before storm, snow was consistently soft. After storm, freeze/thaw signs in snow was significantly noticeable. As well wind loaded drifts hiding in the snow around the cornices."
