Glorious day. Light breeze. Could not have asked for a better day to be on The Presi's. The snow was a little sluggish at times on our way up to Nauman Tentsite. Camped there for the night. Perfectly clear night. Amazing. Started out this morning at 7am from Nauman. Packed monorail to treeline. There is deep sloppy snow between the summits back in the tree's. Lots of folks we talked to came up Edmonds and said it was horrific, but they also had no traction. One hiker came up using crampons. Anyway, we decided to do the loop around Eisenhower on our way back. We went up Eisenhower going north and took the AT coming south. BAD DECISION. There is no snowpack and multiple tricky blowdowns. It looks like only a couple of people have taken this route. It was the longest half mile back and it was nasty and deep snow. Id avoid it for atleast another few weeks. Snowshoes would have been ok but its narrow in that area and the snow is giving way down the side. We microspiked on and off through the tricky places. We turned around on Franklin but the rest of the way look snow free for the most part to Monroe. We had done the Mitzpah cutoff so we looped back to Crawford Path for outr decent. We made really good time going down since its nice and gradual. Was able to pick up some really good speed and truck down off the ridge from the bottom of Pierce in about 90 minutes. We could not have asked for a better weekend. Visibility was high, views were breathtaking and our pup is just short of 6 months old and now has 4, 4000 footers. Hike on!! I have pictures on my blog
http://www.teamchacopak.com/2013/05/southern-presidentials-pierce.html
http://www.teamchacopak.com/2013/05/southern-presidentials-pierce.html
