Well, this is my favorite hike but I haven't been here in a while. I'm super out of shape and decided to try to tackle it, as a jump-start for myself.
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I made it close to the top, but not actually all the way up. Because of my fitness level it took me twice as long as it did last time I hiked this Trail & i just knew it wld be smart to turn back at the point where it gets super steep.
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For some reason it's not letting me select Fall Foliage, but there is definitely an array of yellow to green and red in the leaves, some wildflowers, Indian Paintbrush and some cute periwinkle colored Bells, some purple wild daisies and a few other species of flower. Definitely end of the season, but still nice to see.
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There are a lot of loose rocks on the trail, and horse pucky since this Trail is shared with horse Travelers, if you're new to this one.
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A few downed trees that are really easy to go around or over, and some streams in a couple muddy patches that you have to navigate carefully, but really not so bad and nothing that would prevent you from going forward.
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There are some flies, but not so bad as Lake Colchuck which has a serious biting horse fly infestation problem when I was there a few years ago, and I won't be returning to there.
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But, hopefully the horses don't bring horseflies to the Lake Ann Trail. The regular flies were annoying but i had no bug bites the entire way, w/o bug spray.
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Keep an eye out for wasps and weird bugs that you don't want flying onto you, but I only saw 2 wasps anyway. Some weird large bugs on the trail I've never seen before too and ants but easy to avoid.
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This was a more popular day than the last couple times I was here, like others have said about a quarter-mile of vehicles on the road before the trailhead. Most people went for Lake Ingalls, but I did encounter about five parties on the trail up to Lake Ann.
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I'm not sure why people say that the road conditions are bad, it's a pretty well maintained FS gravel road with barely any potholes. You can go 25mph, just slow down around camps/mind your dust. It is a little bumpy from rain water or stream overflow making waves, but it's still not bad at all unless you expected it to be paved which is ridiculous. If you're a fancy pants with a fancy pants car I wouldn't recommend taking it on any gravel road, but that's about all of the warning I would find necessary.
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