Tldr: this a great day hike for people comfortable with scrambling!
Got to the trailhead around 8:30 am and there were still some spots left. We first headed up Earl Peak, which is well-signed but pretty straightforward. A few downed logs across the Bean Creek Basin trail, easy to go over. Nice ripe thimbleberries near the start. There are a few spots of loose dirt/gravel. At the summit, there were huge swarms of flying ants, but they were very concentrated at the actual summit and not bothersome if you moved about 20 feet in any direction.
The traverse from Earl to Bean along the ridge requires a bit of routefinding and picking your way around/over talus. Fun if you like that sort of thing! It was the most time-consuming part of the hike. We dropped down before reaching to trail that goes up from the basin to the ridge to get to Bean, because one party member wanted to chill out in the basin rather than scramble Bean. The last bit of the main trail from the basin to the ridge is really loose dirt. Going up to Bean is a nice scramble. Unfortunately, the wildfire smoke really started blowing in at that point, so we lost some of the views. Made it back down to the car a little after 4 pm.
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