Winter Scramble - Mount Margaret via Gold Creek

We followed the road to just after the second switch back. The road is groomed, so it was hard packed snow - no traction devices were required. It is about a mile from the parking lot to the second switchback. We left the road and started up - going approximately northeast. We put on snowshoes when leaving the road as the entire route was snow covered. We kept snowshoes on until we returned to the road. We had to make our own path as we didn't see any tracks other than the occasional sky tracks.  There wasn't much brush to worry about, only an occasional branch to push through. Along the way you cross several forest roads. There is a steep section after you cross the gulley that is the "north fork" of Wolfe Creek (at about 4000 feet). The snow was soft enough that we were able to make it up ice axes. I think that if you travel further east, then it will be less steep. At about 4600 feet, we crossed two forest roads (looks to be spur 136). We followed the second one for a bit as it generally led north. It leads to a flat open area. After crossing that, we headed up the south ridge of the south summit. That was pretty easy to follow, and we eventually ended up at the south summit. It isn't clear which area is the true south summit, but the one to the south was open and had excellent views - I would recommend stopping there for a break. We then headed north and descended about 100 feet. It was steep, but the snow was soft enough that crampoons or ice axes were not required - I could easily see how harder snow would make this a difficult descent requiring crampoons and/or ice axes. You are never really exposed on this route, but there are always trees that you could fall into. We then followed the south ridge to the true summit of Margaret. We stayed in the trees (as the open area to climbers right looks steep). It was fairly easy going to reach the summit. It is somewhat open, and there are definitely good views. We descended by basically the same route except that we traversed across rather than re-climbing the south summit. The traverse was a bit tedious. Note that we didn't see the summer trail at all, so couldn't follow that.