BLUF: Did a solo climb yesterday 10 June. Total time 15:54 minutes. Left portal at 2:45 where there was plenty of parking. Needed crampons and an axe, ultimately glissading wasn't too bad.
Got my pass at around 1130 the night before from the overnight box at the visitor center. Spoke to the woman on the phone the day before and she said there would be street parking along portal road for 1 more week. Slept in my car until 230 and hit the trail.
The hike all the way up to trail camp was a breeze, no issues there. The only questionable point was about a half mile into the hike where there was a bit of a sketch creek crossing that I would have preferred not to do alone or in the dark, but I had no one to blame for that but me.
I found following the trail in the dark very easy. Two or three times I would take a step and realize, wait a minute, I must have missed a switchback, and then right behind me would be the switchback.
The chute was where the fun started. I definitely needed both crampons and an axe, some were doing it with just poles and crampons, but I needed the axe (certainly to descend). I was wearing tennis shoes because I was nervous about the creek crossings and so forth and kept telling myself when my feet get wet I will switch into my hiking boots, I actually kept the tennis shoes on all the way to the summit even through the chute, looking back on it I might have just stuck with boots the whole time.
It took me what seemed like forever to get up the chute. There were not good tracks to follow and the ice (it was around 8 or 830) was hard to dig my crampon into. Ultimately I made it up and to the summit around 11. The climb from vista to the summit was windy and a little unnerving but not too bad. There were some pockets of snow/ice but always with enough rocks to hold onto so you never felt like you were going to go over the edge.
The descent is where the fun started. I was nervous to glissade because the chute is so steep and long and the ice had melted to a mushy snow by the early afternoon. After an attempt at walking through someone's previous switchbacks (and one slip that required a mild self arrest) I gave up on walking and decided to give my rear a try. It worked quite well, going 20 or so yards at a time before stopping myself so I wouldn't go to fast. All around me though folks were losing control and panicking to a stop after 30-50 yards. One individual had only poles and took off for the bottom, whether it was intentional or not I do not know, but down he went.
After the chute it was mostly fine, all downhill obviously and pretty easy. It's been said time and time again that the thing that makes this hike difficult isn't the technicality but the length, and that is certainly true. 16 hours later I was back, and happy to be done!
