A wonderful, rugged trail that leads to a wide expanse of snow fields and views of Three Fingers. The gravel road in has lots of potholes but I was fine in my 2WD car on a dry day, just went slow.
The trail is indeed quite rugged and requires a good sense of awareness and route finding. The later half of the trail up (and surrounding slopes) are blanketed in snow so the remainder of the hike becomes a scramble to the summit. Still fun and exhilarating but helpful to have a good map, compass, and/or GPS. Once you hit the snow, there are no indications as to trail location/direction.
Snowshoes are needed for later half of hike to reach the saddle (or micro spikes & gaters at a minimum). Also sunglasses and sunscreen for the exposed snow fields (lovely expanses of white on relatively shallow slope).
Hike down from the saddle / summit requires similar route finding / scramble back to where the "trail" is discernible.
Although only 5.5 miles RT, hike took me about 4.5 hours with lunch at the top. Definitely worth a repeat in any season, but given the scrambling needs for Spring hike, I'd only try this hike on fair weather day.
Enjoy and be safe!
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