Arrived at TH (Discover Pass required) 10:00am. About ten cars there on this Sunday morning. Weather is about 45 degrees, sunny, no wind. Beautiful, trees turning colors. Trail is in great shape! There is a nice bathroom at the Trail Head. Trail starts off moderately and doesn't really let up in terms of elevation gain. I figured about 2100 feet of gain over 3.3 miles. Not extreme, but definitely a lung and leg test. I chose to do the loop in this way: Go straight to the summit on the Mt. Hamilton Trail, have lunch there, then left down through the saddle, which becomes the Equestrian Trail, left at the intersection with the Hardy Creek Trail to where it rejoins the Hamilton Mtn. trail. Turn right. Then maybe it's a mile and a half (could be more or less) back to the car. The only section that was a bit dicey was going through to the saddle once leaving the summit. For about 1/4 of a mile there is not as much melting of accumulated snow because of it being more shaded in that region, so it was a bit slipperier. Micro spikes would easily handle that. Because of that little bit icey area, I saw several hikers elect to simply turn around and go back down the steeper Mt. Hamilton Trail the way they came up. I wanted the extra miles. (5.1 miles back versus the 3.3 miles back)
Great views in many spots. I was very surprised to find I had 3 bars cell service at the top. So that's a bonus. I will add that parts of the trail through to the saddle is not as well maintained with some maintenance needed to knock back the stuff hanging out over the trail. Nothing real serious though. The Equestrian trail is an old logging road, very wide and very gradual with no switchbacks of course. So if the old quads or knees are complaining, this is a far less steep return trip, but longer of course.
With 30 minute lunch (with phone calls) it took me 5 hours total.
Comments