PM, The mountain view restaurant, store and motel is always open, as far as I can tell...it's one of those places you pop into the restaurant, and the waitress goes and opens up a room for you... The Verlot ranger station goes to winter mode on Dec 19, and the road gets gated past Silverton real soon too, I watched the workers dry the primer coat on the gate with blowtorches Friday AM. You should be able to get to about 3 miles shy of the Big four by bike, to where they gate the road. Oh, I was running continental Travel Contact 700x37s. Nice touring tire.

to bikepacker, speaking from decades of sleeping in snowbanks, you need to get your clothing system dialed in so you never have to think about changing your base layers.... lighten up your activity layers, I wore 3 thin wool t shirts under a wool soft shell, essentially, and never changed out of a thing.