traction devices

I'd like to know as well. I do see a lot of rave reviews of the microspikes, so there are obviously some happy campers w/ them.

I find a lot of early (I guess it's late actually) snow is soft and post holing becomes a real problem, traction devices (short of snow shoes) aren't going to help much in those conditions

"So the question is is this; Is the weight worth the gain with traction, and speed over the passes in question given that this is a heavy snow year. And if not, what might you recommend."

The "bindings" on the Kahtoolas are a stretchy rubber like material, which I wouldn't trust on anything much over a 20-25 degree slope, and the spikes are pretty short. Basically, they're good for hard packed snow up to about 20-25 degrees and very low angle ice. Anything beyond that and I'd consider some lightweight aluminum crampons if I were taking anything at all. The Kahtoolas weigh almost 13 oz in a medium, and 14.4 in a large, so the weight penalty wouldn't be that great. All that said, I'd bet you won't need them unless you're going late enough in the year for the north facing slopes to ice up.

Some PCT hikers that I know who hiked last year, which was also a high snow year (not nearly as high, but still high) the consensus was that the Kathoola KTS aluminum crampons were the best thing since sliced bread. Much better than the microspikes and better than real crampons because they didn't have the dangerous aspects of real crampons.