I am planning on slowly making my way up to the Bugs in July/August. Do you generally need crampons/axe for approaches then? Thanks.

Foe most of the peaks you need to be ready for glacier travel. You might get away with climbing at the crescent spires without a tool and crampons, but everywhere else you are gonna need them... or at least, should have them.

you'll need them for bugaboo-snowpatch an pigeon-howser cols. Rather than lugging boots I used gore-tex approach shoes and kathoola crampons. this worked really well