Rat and I did this traverse in the opposite direction this weekend. We hiked in through thundershowers on Friday and bivied on the ridge above Jerry Lakes. The bugs are out in full force. Rat thought they weren't that bad, but I was really glad we brought a tent instead of a tarp, and hunted down every one that made its way into our sanctuary and slaughtered it with a cathartic "DIE, motherfucker!"
The climbing on the E Ridge is super fun, and only 3 hours from where you access the ridge to the summit. We downclimbed the last little section of the E Ridge and traversed over to the N Ridge on steep snow, then downclimbed the N Ridge to a very cool cannonhole we slithered through, down more steep snow to the Nohokomeen, traversed across it and scampered through a little icefall.
A lovely break on a sunny rock was followed by approximately 4500 feet of "straightforward" (if you're Rat) or "character-building" (if you're me) bushwhacking down to the Ross Lake East Bank trail. Spent the night there and had a pleasant hike out yesterday. We tried to hitchhike back to the Canyon Creek trailhead, but ended up just walking the whole way along the highway, which didn't actually take all that long. Excellent alpine scramble with gorgeous views, and we didn't see a soul until we hit Roland Creek on the way out yesterday.