This was another first hike for me. It’s a nice hike and there are very large boulders along parts of the trail that are interesting to look at. I arrived at the parking lot around 9:00am and there were already quite a few cars there. I put on my boots and gaiters and was on the trail about ten minutes later. The trail steeply climbs from the parking lot to a road. Follow the road upward (right) until it connects to the Iron Horse Trail. Keep going straight (do not turn left onto the Iron Horse Trail) and very soon you’ll see a post on the left side of the road with some lettering on it. Continue on just a bit until you see a break in the trees on the left. That’s the trail. Parts of the trail are pretty rocky and parts of the trail are pretty wet and there are a couple small blowdowns along the way that are easily stepped over. I passed the small cave turned climbing rock about thirty minutes from the parking lot and I was at a “viewpoint” (fogged in) a little over thirty minutes from the cave. Snow appeared on the trail around 3400’/3500’ but only a few inches. It never got any deeper than that and there’s none at all in the forest section approaching the summit. There’s a creek crossing earlier that’s actually more slippery than the snow was. I found the creek crossing less slippery to just walk through the water rather than stepping on the surface rocks. Having waterproof boots makes that an easy option. I arrived at a fence/gate to pass through a little under two hours into the hike and arrived at the completely fogged in summit forty minutes after that, which made the trip two and half hours up to the summit including a couple photography stops. I passed two hikers shortly below the summit who were part of a large party at the summit when I arrived. Another solo hiker and a couple of backpackers were also at the summit and another solo hiker and a group of three arrived shortly after that. I stayed for about forty minutes watching the couple of gray jays hoping for some crumbs then headed down, making it back to the parking lot in an hour and forty minutes, including two photography breaks.
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