Saturday will be the first of my winter 46.  I have all the gear and this will be my shakedown hike.  I didn't go up last weekend because of a major rain storm on Friday and unsure of the trails.  Trail reports after said some of the water crossings were bad, but overall the trails were fine throughout the high peaks.  This week, we've again got rain up there, but on Wednesday, and not as much or bad as we had last week.  That gives it a couple days to freeze back up and there's supposed to be another 9 or so inches of snow falling Friday.  So, with that all in mind, Cascade/Porter makes perfect sense to do as it's short (5.5 miles if I get both peaks) and there are no real water crossings on the route.  The other thing is that this route is heavily traveled, so as long as I'm not up there at the crack of dawn, it will likely be broken out... maybe not to the point of just using spikes the whole way up, but probably still a well packed trail.  My only concern is the trail between Cascade and Porter... that 0.7 miles is not as popular as Cascade, and there were reports that it wasn't well packed.... but if all I have to do is break 0.7 miles of trail, that's not an issue.

I've got all the gear I need sitting in the dining room and just need to pack it up.  The route planning is below and really that's the only reasonable route.  There is an alternative to go over Blueberry from Marcy Field, but that's longer and not as popular, so it's likely not going to be broken out.