Winter ascent of Bill Williams Mountain! The trail and area was recently re-opened from a winter logging/4F fire mitigation action. It had been closed for 2 weeks, and logging had been in the immediate area adjacent to the trail for about ~4, 5 weeks? We did note that some areas had been thinned out quite well, but the farther we got up the trail, the less thinning that had occurred. Temp was 9° when we woke up this morning, and 26°F at the trailhead. We had to stop and put microspikes on within the first .15 miles, as the initial 400' climb in the first half-mile of the trail was quite literally a river of ice. Just, solid ice. With our microspikes on, it wasn't a problem, but it would have been sketchy as heck without them. The difference in the amount of snow going up vs. coming down later in the afternoon was pronounced - at in the lower, flatter portions, there was a ton of melt and lots of snow disappeared throughout the course of the day. When we were higher up inside the canyon and working our way up to the saddle, the snow got progressively deeper. There were clearly a lot of blowdowns; we spent a decent amount of time picking big branches (2" diameter, or just 5-7' long) up and tossing them off the path. It's going to need a lot of trail maintenance when the snow melts to get it into decent hiking shape again. The higher up we went, the deeper the snow got; we were stepping into 8-10" deep holes where the trail had been broken, and then we'd posthole or slide occasionally. It was tiring. Microspikes were fine, though, we didn't have to break out crampons. Definitely was not the right kind of snow for snowshoes. Too much thawing and re-freezing, it was icy hard snow for the first inch or two. Powdery underneath, once you broke through the crust. We ate lunch at the top, after threading our way through the many microwave towers and found a nice little overlook. Down was easier than up, and microspikes were very necessary to get through the river of ice that had become quite slick with a day of sunshine. A good hike!