Dirty Harry's Balcony — Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025

For her birthday this year instead of a party my daughter chose a mother-daughter hike, so she picked this trail, an old favorite of ours, and we brought friends along too. The four of us arrived at 9:15 to only a handful of other vehicles in the lot. Outhouse is still closed but there is one clean-ish portapotty. The trail is in great shape, not much mud at the moment, and it’s a good one for these coming rainy days with lots of tree cover. The vine maples  have mostly all turned and the color is very pretty right now. Once you get past the initial climb there are some lovely intermittent views the rest of the way up, and the view from the balcony itself is really nice even on cloudy days. We brought a thermos of hot cocoa to share our achievement and the girls enjoyed that! We only saw an handful people all day, probably due to the rainy morning, which felt so different for this otherwise popular hike. The rain disappeared quickly though and we actually had some sunshine for the way down. We were back at the car by 1:15. Everyone had a good time, especially the birthday girl!