First solo scouting trip. I went old school with just a USGS map & compass. Begin 9:00 AM at TH. Missed the Commonwealth Trail and hiked the PCT. Trail was wet and muddy. Crossing the Commonwealth Creek there was frost in the gully (Fall is coming!). Back in the forest, the trail was wet and muddy. After passing a large scree area I found the "stump" along the PCT that marks the scramble route to the Peak. Loose rock, wet vegetation, and mud were managed by using trekking poles. Made the summit in 2H 30M, a fast pace. The scramble to the summit is not for those who fear heights, some areas get sketchy! I spent 40 mins unsuccessfully routefinding from the Peak to the Katwalk. I returned to the PCT and walked further along for about 20 mins and found the Katwalk. On the return I found the Commonwealth Trail and saved a reported 1.4 miles. That trail was marked abandoned and was overgrown. The lower PCT had many roots and the upper PCT had many rocks. Travel carefully. No snow and the PCT had been cleared of all blowdowns. Partly cloudy day with hints of fall foliage and fantastic views in every direction.

I usually start the hike by taking the Old Commonweath Basin trail from the TH to the junction of the PCT and the normal basin trail at 4000ft. But the brush looked too wet so I started off on the PCT instead. Honestly, despite being much longer than the old basin trail, it probably still takes the same amount of time to reach the junction since the PCT isn't steep and the trail is in great shape. It took me 57 minutes to reach the junction, 2.5 miles from the TH and only 1000 higher.

Once you break out of the forest on the final traverse under Kendall Peak, amazing wildflowers are everywhere. Best display I've seen outside of Mt. Rainier NP. Tons of tiger lilies (very orange in color), columbine, paintbrush, lupine, and more. I stopped a lot to take close-up photos on the tiger lilies. The views are also nice, and there are pikas and marmots that live in the boulder fields, so watch for them.

You will come up to a couple more small switchbacks. This is where you want to pay attention in you are looking to summit Kendall Peak. You will switchback south very briefly, then hit another switchback and go north again. Now looks for a big dead tree stump along the trail. It is hard to miss. Pass it and look for a trail that leads up the mountain on the right. The trail up to the summit is very easy to follow and not dangerous at all. It is a simple steep hike. As you gain the summit ridge, the summit will be to the south on your right. You will see a rock cairn at the top. Look for the register tucked under it and enjoy the great views.

However, I actually didn't go up that trail to the summit. That is the way I came down. I continued to follow the PCT to up where it hits the ridge crest north of the mountain, at 5400ft. This is where my route to the summit began. This is a scramble, so only go this way if you have scrambling experience. Otherwise, go the way I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Look for a boot path that leads you south towards the summit. You will lose the path a lot, so the key is to stay as high on the spine of the ridge as possible. At the top of the first little hill, you will have a view of Kendall's three summits. Follow the easy ridge to the base of the north (first) summit. Look for a high ramp with some moss on the right side and scramble up that, aiming for the highest big tree. Once you get to the other side of the north summit, the key here is to stay off of the top of the ridge, since it gets very narrow and dicey, but still stay as high as possible. Continue to traverse just off to the right side of the ridge and central summit, and you will soon get into much easier terrain. Now follow the remainder of the easy ridge south up to the main summit, keeping an eye out for the trail that you will take back down to the PCT.

We tried this near the end of June and turned back close to the summit because of the hazardous snow conditions. The trail is now perfect and we couldn't have picked a better day.

The parking lot was about half full when we arrived at 8. We saw a few parties on the way down as we were climbing. Most of them looked like backpackers who came from the other side of the Katwalk.

The blowdowns along the first two miles of the PCT have been cleared. Nice job WTA. There were at least a dozen of those a couple of months ago and some were very difficult to get over. There are still a few blowdowns around the four mile mark from the PCT trailhead. These weren't too bad though. There were two small patches of snow that required about 2-3 steps to cross so no issues with that.

The scramble path is easy to find about 50 feet beyond the large dead stump on the left side of the trail after the last switchback (at least my map indicated it was switchback) before the Katwalk. The scramble path was more loose than I expected. It's not Red Mountain loose, but rocks will go flying toward the PCT if you're not careful. The trip reports and route descriptions I read said the true summit was the most northern of the several summits. Almost to the top, the boot path gives you an option to go right or left. Since north was left, we went left and ended up on an exposed block that turned out to not be the summit. There's no way all those Mountaineers could fit on that thing! Looking to the south, we found the true summit and made a ten minute easy scramble over there. We found the summit cairn and the Mountaineers' summit register buried inside. The views were spectacular!

On the way down we passed probably 50 people or so which is less than I had anticipated. We had the expected questions about how far the Katwalk was. The good news is I didn't see anyone wearing sandals or looking like a they had never been on a mountain trail before. Trip reports I had previously read made me believe the crowd would be similar to Mount Si or Granite Mountain and I was pleasantly surprised. This is also a great entry level scramble as long as care it taken not to send rocks down on the hikers below.

The parking lot was full when we arrived at 2. About 3 hours up, including our venture to the wrong summit, and about 2 and half down. Bugs were out but the bug juice kept them away.

We finally got around to attempting this hike! It's been on our list for a while and a couple of early season attempts were thwarted by reports of heavy snow. The Forest Service website still currently lists that trail condition as unknown, but it is clear and open for business. We started out at about 1:30pm on Saturday with a few other cars at the trailhead. It was clear and HOT, making the not so exciting hike up the old road seem even longer. The road is lined with wildflowers, especially Indian's paintbrush and wild strawberries. They were super tiny, but so delicious! Once you snake your way within view of Kendal Peaks you leave the road and hit the trail amongst small 5-6 foot pine trees mixed with blueberry bushes. It's a short 5-10 minute hike to the first lake from there. It is pretty small and only a few feet deep at best. It's surround by swampy marsh(bring your bug spray!), but is a nice change of scenery from the dusty dirt road.

You cross the outlet stream and skirt around the western edge and continue onwards to the second lake. Once you hit the second lake you stumble into an established campsite under cover of trees. Trails go in both directions around the lake, but don't make a complete circle. To continue onward you go to the right and follow the trail along the edge of the lake. There are several sunken logs visible in the crystal clear water along with a handfull of GIANT boulders that are clearly a place of refuge for resident trout. You cross the outlet and have the option of a second campsite near a giant boulder at the water's edge, or continue up the increasingly steep mountainside to the third and final lake. We set up camp near the boulder on the eastern shore, then got out our daypacks for the ascent onward. There isn't much of a visible trail, so it's kind of a free for all to the top. The outlet of the third lake is a waterfall and we headed up the mountainside to the left of it. It was tough and required some rock climbing, but we made it to the dead silent third lake nestled below Kendal Peak.

A man was there with his son and they reported seeing some decent sized fish swimming around. We explored a little and then found the actual trail that led to the lake. We descended on the correct trail which crosses the outlet and descends steeply. (Start your ascent to the third lake to the right of the waterfall). It was peacefull night of fishing without any luck. There were several fish surfacing, but no takers. The fog started rolling in over the top of the trees from the direction of the first lake and descended to the surface of the lake and spread quickly over the calm surface. It was kind of an erie, but beautiful experience. We awoke early and beat the heat which make the descent much more pleasant. Overall, if you can get past the not so exciting walk along the dirt road then you'll be rewarded with 3 beautiful, and often overlooked, alpine lakes.