Brian and I contoured down around the bench above Lake Ann (we had camped above and to its west; I imagine that most folks camp a little lower, or simply blast the route in a long day) to get a look at conditions and the route.

Neither one of us was thinking overly good thoughts. There was just too much snow. To the left of the approach we could see numerous slides, including the one from the night before. The debris runout was ~200'.

Brian and I took a look at the route (mouse over the photo above to see a closer shot and various landmarks). Just getting to the entrance would involve heavy booting over loaded snow. Cornices threatened from above left and right of the route. The chimneys themselves, which in season are third-class rock scrambling, were completely filled with snow, steep and deep. We could see the exit and a small section of Winnie's Slide, a steeper section of 45-degree snow and/or ice leading onto the Upper Curtis Glacier. The glacier above was very heavily loaded with snow, and temperatures were warm enough that we knew we'd be postholing severely. Hell's Highway looked to be almost entirely covered in snow, which was good; in normal season it would be a bit broken up, crevassed, and threatened by rockfall. We couldn't see the Sulphide above, but we knew that, quite simply, there was a ton of snow up there. The summit pyramid almost certainly held gullies full of snow and ice (which initially provided the impetus for an early-season ascent - but not this early; I hesitate to say that if temperatures were significantly colder, this could have been a great winter-condition climb).

We both wanted to give it a shot, but neither one of us felt that the conditions were even approaching right. We were concerned about kicking off a slide getting to, or ascending the chimneys. If we made it to the Upper Curtis, we knew we'd be in very deep snow, which, and I know this sounds defeatist, but it would have almost certainly hastened a turnaround, or slowed us so much that we would be forced to descend very wet, sloppy, avalanche-prone slopes. I was more concerned about coming down the chimneys than ascending them. We took all of these factors into account and made the decision to pack up and head out. It was hard. It was a long way to come to take a look and turn around. But I feel we made the right decision.