Wind Mountain is a popular summit on the Washington side of the Columbia river gorge near Carson WA with wonderful views of the river and Mt. St. Helens I was a little worried about access given the recent snowstorms the area has had, but decided to take the chance. The trail was pretty icy, and for lack of crampons I found myself relying heavily on my trekking poles with ice tips.
The road in was plowed until the end of the asphalt about 1/4 mile from the actual trailhead, but parking was very limited with room for about 4 vehicles on the plowed shoulder. Most of the trail is under the forest canopy and had several inches of packed ice/snow, which was sturdy enough in the morning, but loosened up and got pretty slick in the afternoon on the way back down. The trails sections that are exposed had closer to 3 feet of packed snow, and I found myself traversing on the ice bridges in between previous hikers' post-holes. Once on the summit, the rock ledges were mostly clear and made for a great spot to take in the view. I wedged my mast into a hole in the rock pile at the top of the summit, tied my wire off to a tree branch, and set up my operating position just below the summit on the rocks. Made 14 contacts in all, and spent a little over an hour on summit.
All in all the conditions were tough but managable. This was my first attempt at a snow activation and I was a bit less than perfectly prepared, but I made it up and down safely and had a successful activation.