4/16, Ruth Mountain

This is my first trip report so bare with me -
I went for a ski on Ruth Mountain yesterday. The Hannegan Pass rd is open up to about 3/4 mile from the trailhead. I would think that with the warm, wet weather this weekend it should be passable to the trailhead by Monday.
The snow in the valley was very firm on the skin up. After the first mile or two in the trees there is significant slide debris along the majority of the  trail, making following the mid-slope trail difficult. After about 45 minutes of struggle I opted to drop down into the valley bottom and bushwack up the creek. Staying low was definitely the ticket as far as safety and speed go, I wish I had done it sooner.
Having left the trail I decided to skip the approach via Hannegan pass. I skinned up to the head of the valley in hopes of a more direct route. The route up from the base of the valley to the ridge leading to the summit was straight forward although hard snow conditions persisted so I opted to boot pack up the steeper bits. Once on the ridge I was able to skin the rest of the way to summit. It took me a little less than 5 hours from car to summit.
I had heard good things about the views but I was still blown away - 360 degree views of the N. cascades on a bluebird day is about as good as it gets. The view of Shucksan was particularly impressive. So after kicking myself for leaving the camera in the truck I started my descent. After the boilerplate conditions I encountered on the hike up I expected some survival skiing on the way down but I was pleased to find that everything had softened up nicely, making for soft corn turns from top to bottom. With lots of time on my hands and a beautiful day, I took my time on the skin out. It took about 2.5 hours to make it back to the car.
This was my first trip to Ruth and I would highly recommend it. If you don't mind a long-ish approach (about 10 miles round trip to and from the base of Ruth) its a straight forward trip with big pay-off in summit views and a nice ski descent.