Le Conte's east face is mainly steep snow with a summit area of rock. So climbing Le Conte consists of kicking a lot of steps up the snow face with a short rock scramble to get to the summit. From the summit one can look down the rugged, precipitous west face almost 3000 feet to the terminus of the South Cascade Glacier with the tiny USGS research hut near the glacier terminus. Getting back down is the best part because the snow slope has a uniform steepness and is unusually smooth making it easy to do a standing slalom glissade of over 1000 feet with a nice runout at the bottom.