It's a long and involved approach, and it isn't clear which of several route choices is best. We opted for the "Preston-Nevers" approach in the Washington Ice guide, which starts up FS 1202, because it's only about 4 miles long. The alternative would have been almost 6 miles up FS 570, the "Milk Creek" route. The trade-off is that the Milk Creek approach stays on logging roads until about the last half mile, while Preston-Nevers includes about 1.5 miles of "light bushwacking".
Neither road was plowed when we arrived Sunday morning, and FS 570 looked like it hadn't even been packed by snowmobiles lately, though we didn't stay long to investigate. FS 1202 was a breeze, but the bushwack was a bitch. In total, we took more than four hours to get up, and almost 3 to get down. One complicating factor is that as it's pictured in the guide, the Preston-Nevers approach ends a bit southwest of the Motherlode area. So we tried to traverse gradually to our left as a shortcut, and this may have taken us through deeper woods than necessary. Google maps seem to show some clearings to the right of our line that might be worth a try.
No mistaking it though, it's an ice paradise once you get there! Well worth a two or three day outing...