Drove up to trailhead Saturday night for a nice early start Sunday. First part of trail through woods has a couple potential detours, looks like some newish trail work to get around downed trees, etc. Not necessary to have GPS, but certainly helped...
Successfully got across rivers and streams with dry feet and made our way up towards Headlee pass. Trail became a bit unclear over larger boulders section before Headlee, but cairns and general direction not too difficult to navigate.
Headlee pass was a short, steep section of switchbacks with lots of loose rock on the trail. Beautiful opening at the top and a little scree field traverse towards Vesper creek. Successfully maintained the dry feet across Vesper creek and started the climb up through tree section. Started to get a bit steeper with some punchy sections.
After coming out of this short section, started to get into intermixed snow and rock sections. Watch out for the transitions between rock/snow, good potential for post-holing. Snow was softening up which made climbing relatively easy. Bit of a choose-your-own adventure with scrambling to the peak but certainly doable.
Enjoyed the view and chatted up the climbers who ascended the North face! Saw a little helicopter take off from unknown lake to the North, also pretty cool!
Climbing back down was straight forward and snow was real soft so glissading was nice and slow, if anything too slow... Both of us just had normal hiking boots and poles (which I would say are necessary for snow sections) and felt relatively comfortable; that being said, ice ax, spikes, and helmet would help mitigate risks.
Rest of the way down was relatively eventful asides from minor rock falls coming down Headlee pass. Please be mindful of loose rocks and folks below!
Legs definitely felt the long downhills, but hiking poles certainly helped. As the trail listing mentions, a perfect hike to dip the toes into more backcountry exploration/summiting while still challenging.
Overall, a very lovely day hike with fantastic views, not too many people, and a little bit of everything!
Start time: 5:30ish
Summit: 8:45ish
End time: 2ish (couple of quick stops along the way)
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