I can speak to the Ice Cliff as of last weekend. We had cold temps on Sat. and didn't leave the car until 8:45 as we wanted to get an idea of what the weather would do. Our hunch was completely wrong, but in any event, we climbed the Ice Cliff on Sat., and topped out at 6:00 for a planned bivi. However, we were stuck in a horrible storm on the S. facing slope at 8,700'. The route was made much more demanding than we expected by the high winds (30-40 mph?), heavy snowfall, and near continuous spindrift. The snow was very hard; mostly front pointing and double tooling all the way up the couloir. The cliff itself is no big deal right now (ascend on the left). The schrund below the couloir is also passed on the left right now.
I don't agree that you need to leave so early for the route, but then again we had cold temps. It might be less safe in the kind of heat we had this past week.
Good luck and be safe.
John Sharp