The Martin Volken guidebook suggests camping at Lunch Counter and then summiting to ski the SW Chutes day 2, which would seem to implicitly suggest hauling your overnight gear to the top...
Far be it from me to second-guess Martin, but I think this is nonsense. As I said, I've only done this as a day trip from the trailhead (although quite a few times), because I can't see any advantage to carrying overnight gear. An alpine start from an overnight camp would just mean waiting around longer for stuff to corn up. Spending the night at altitude increases the chances of altitude sickness. And carrying a full backpack up and over? WHY, fer godssakes?
As you've figured out, camping above 6500 or 7000 feet merely makes it more difficult to get back to your camp, while killing the exhilaration which follows skiing the chutes. And camping a mere thousand or 1500 feet from the parking lot really doesn't give much advantage of any sort. Everyone's got their favorite route for getting back to the main trail; the easiest time I ever had exiting the chutes was when we managed to pick up the Around the Mountain Trail around 6200 feet and followed it most of the way back. Credit: Ron Jarvis and his faithful GPS.
If you're skiing the South Climb, this might all look different. Just be careful not to fall into a waist-deep glissade track.
I can see how a non-skiing climber might want to get up and back down before the snow turns to unsupportable mush--as it can do on the South Climb route. But that's an excellent reason not to be a climber.
