Absolutely beautiful day up Noonmark.  We started off with 4 people around 8 in the morning.  A late start, but it was going to be a short hike.  Th trail up Noonmark reminded me of the high peak trails just a bit further down the road.  A stead steep with some crazy steep spots.  With the rain that had come through earlier in the week, it was not as snowy, and there was plenty of ice.  Towards the top the snow started to dominate and we could have justified switching to snowshoes, but it wasn't really that deep.... the heel lifts would have been nice, but then you hit that patch of near vertical ice.... spikes were the footwear of choice for the day.

The views at the top were spectacular.  You had a view of the great range that you normally only see from the Leach trail (Bear Den, Dial, Nippletop), and it was clear enough you could easily see Marcy hiding behind Haystack, Basin? and Gothics.  On the other side, you got a great view of Dix with the slides and Beckhorn peeking out, and then across the road at Giant and RPR.  Windy on top, and no real wind break for the direction it was traveling, but beautiful none the less.

Then we went down the other side.  More snow for sure on the eastern slopes, and a little less ice.  Overall not bad to get down, and I think it was the better option than going down what we just went up.  The problem we found though was the Old Dix trail to Round and back out was not really broken out.  One set of tracks, and the trail was not easy to follow.  But we went that way because that's where the cars were.  We reached the trail junction with Round, and by this point we had more tracks to follow, as if someone had wanted to do Round or Noonmark clockwise, and decided to turn around in that area.  Round was not broken out, so we decided to cut 0.8 miles and 800 feet and head on out via the Old Dix trail.  Probably the right decision as we have no idea how bad the route finding up Round would be, nor how bad it would be to break out.  There were 4 of us, so it probably would have been fine, but it also would have added at least 1 hour, if not 2 to the hike, for only a little more distance.  

Overall it was a perfect day to hike, and we all got back without major injuries.  I call it a success.