Finally got out for some winter alpine climbing. This was a really spontaneous trip. Friday afternoon I was driving home from work in Denver and thought of camping in RMNP and climbing a peak in the area since the weather was supposed to be really nice (lows in the 30s!). We bought some winter climbing gear and have been itching to get out and try it out, but the last several weekends we were either sick, had family trips planned or there was a big snow in the mountains. So we left lakewood at 4:30 to estes and grabbed a campsite at moraine park. Met a friend for dinner in estes park and got in contact with another friend who proposed we meet him to climb Mt. Lady Washington at 8am. We got back to the campground around 10pm. It was really windy and loud trying to sleep in the I didn't get much sleep, so I was nervous about being about to successfully summit, knowing it was an 11 mile roundtrip and that niether my wife nor I had been at elevation in several months. We got to the trailhead at 8 and met our friend and set off by about 8:30am. There were maybe 8 other cars at the trailhead. There was a lot of snow but it was packed down really good. Just used microspikes until we got above treeline where the wind had blown most of the snow off the mountain. The snow below treeline was pretty deep though and if you stepped off the trail you'd probably fall into the snow about 2-3 feet. Once above treeline the wind really picked up, probably sustained at 30mph with gusts up to 50mph. A few times we nearly got blown over. Because of the intense wind, we opted not to take the standard route to the north side of the peak and up the boulder field. Instead, at the trail junction to chasm lake, we ascended the eastern ridge of MLW. We realized this would make our ascent much more difficult, with 1300ft of steep scrambling, but the wind was coming out of the north and we knew if we had taking the keyhole route that it probably would have been more miserable than the steep climb we opted for. There wasn't much snow, which made this choice easy. The last 100-200 ft of the climb we had to use a few class 3 moves, but for the most part the route was difficult class 2 terrain. We were pretty well protected from the wind on the eastern ridge, but there were still dangerous gusts that could blow you over, so we were constantly laying on the rocks when we could hear a big gust coming. Once we reached the summit (around 1:30pm) the winds were fierce, likely sustained 40 mph with gusts to 50-60mph. It wasn't very safe to stand on the summit and despite warm temperatures overall on this day, wind chills were well below zero. We only stayed at the summit for 5-10 minutes before escaping south for protection from the wind. The view was incredible of longs peak. I didn't get many photos this day, but I did manage a decent one from the summit. The trip down took longer than I expected, but we veered more south of the route we had taken up and it was much less steep. Once we got back on the trail, it was difficult to stay on due to snowfields, but luckily I had recorded our route with a GPS app on my phone and we were able to find the trail again without wasting too much energy. Got back to the trailhead around 4pm. It was a great hike and really makes me want to do more winter alpine climbing.