This hike is so breathtaking!!
I hiked this on 4/13/23. We started kinda late around 11am. The hike is fairly well maintained, hats off to the trail workers to maintaining this! Its a gradual and continuous accent through the forest and its pretty covered hike that minor showers didnt bother us.
Towards the end we get to the ropes part where there are about 2-3 sections with ropes. The folks who set the ropes did an amazing job to keep it well paced with stopping points. Its a little scary, but actually quite sturdy to leverage the rope to climb up - its not a vertical climb simply small stones that dont provide the best support to hike in absence of rope. Once you are done with the rope section, you simply scramble up the rocks at the end to see the breathtaking view of lake crescent. There is enough space up top to stop and snack before heading back down.
Climbing down on the rope path is kinda scary, atleast for me, but my partner pointed out rappelling technique which made it super easy - basically climb down using top but still facing the top of the mountain (instead of your back to the top in usual climb down).
I highly recommend this hike, the only down side is it made all the other hikes in that area feel not as special.
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