Day Hike - Mount Washington (Snoqualmie)

Trail started with spotty, icy snow and quickly became almost all snow with a good boot-packed trail.  Some bare rocky stretches on the lower section with a small amount of running water.  Off to either side of the packed trail, snow was very soft and knee-deep. It got deeper as we ascended with a couple more short rocky, wet parts. The trail continued to be well-packed, but it slowed us down quite a bit because a step off a little to either side, or not on a previous step, caused us to post-hole above the knees.  The trail was too narrow and deep for snow shoes.  On the upper traverses, we kept close to the up-hill side of the track to avoid a punch through and potential slip down through the trees.  About less than a mile from the summit, the path took us on a very steep straight-up shortcut for about 50 feet to continue on the main trail.  Here we followed large bucket steps with the occasional post-hole. Snow on the summit was at least 5 feet deep. One person in my party took a step next a small tree sticking up from the snow and sunk in up to his waist, and still was not standing on dirt; he got out easily.