Really nice day for a quick jaunt. Colors are amazing, mostly the vine maples in all their glory now, as the blueberry bushes are starting to fade a bit. Just a few patches of snow near the pass, otherwise the typical mud and roots (and more roots!), plus a few trees that are easily navigable. Road is rough but passable, very little water today, but I wouldn’t drive it when it’s raining. 

Nice trail with varying terrain, good views and no other hikers on it. The first part starts out fairly steep as you go straight up the hillside with a few switchbacks thrown in for good measure. Fairly well maintained trail with only a couple downed trees sprinkled in. Mosquitoes were present near the small ponds that still had water in them, but I didn't find them bad. We weren't here at dusk though, so I imagine it gets worse.There are also berries everywhere on this trail on the upper portion near the pass and we even saw some leaves turning red/yellow. 

Do this hike if you like views of granite mountain faces, berries, and solitude. Just know that it's a bit steep in places and you'll get a workout going up.

Beautiful Trail with an amazing view at the end!  The road was rough but easily doable in my suv.  A sedan probably could drive there too if going slow, but I only saw SUV/trucks at the trail head.  There is a very nice box/toilet seat potty into the woods a bit across the road from the trail.  A few people didn't make it to the potty though and there are quite a few piles of TP on the ground : (  Just follow the little trace and poop in the toilet please!

The trail itself is in pretty good shape considering with a couple of brushy spots, but it definitely gets down to business and gains elevation quickly. Lots of wonderful berries; yum! Started at 7:50am, arrived at pass just before 9:40am (1hr 50min up 1hr 30min down).   It was fun seeing the climbers on 3 o'clock rock and the views of Three Fingers and White Horse were amazing!  There was quite the collection of Cairns on the pass, kind of fun, but I know they are controversial lol : )  Great little trail! I enjoyed a full hour on the pass in the morning sun before the next folks arrived-everybody was loving the beautiful day!

 What keeps the crowds away:

• Very steep in many places and for long stretches
• Very rooty, and if not rooty, then very rocky
• Brushy, overgrown sections
• Very muddy in many places; you will not return to your car with clean boots
• The road in: best driven by an SUV; leave the low clearance, family sedan at home. The road is rough with two dips over large rocks. The road is narrow though there are several wide spots (one wouldn’t need to back up more than ¼ mile to pass).

 What we were thankful for on this hike:

• It is relatively short, only 6 miles round trip (though it felt much longer, and had it been longer the “reward” would not have been worth the effort).
• The trail is mostly in the shade so doesn’t get too hot even on a hot afternoon. We started at 1pm.
• Plenty of water in the last ½ mile – the slabs with shallow streams running over them were beautiful, fun, and refreshing.
• There were no nettles/blackberry bushes in the brushy overgrown sections so our legs were spared stings and scratches.
• Solitude (we really enjoy meeting a few people on the trail, so total solitude is not our preference), we only met people in the parking lot and at the climbing rock, there was no one at or near the pass
• No biting bugs out yet, though we did see plenty of gnats, a few flies and mosquitoes
• The road was not steep (though narrow and rough) and there was plenty of parking at the trailhead.
• No sketchy snow crossings. There was only one small patch which will be gone in a week.
• wildlife: frogs in the ponds near the pass and birds throughout the trail (mostly just heard them but a couple Rufous humming birds buzzed by us at the pass)

Other Notes:

The trail is not hard to follow with a little attention in a few areas.  We took a wrong turn at the climbing rock.  Do not turn up (left); when passing the climbing rock, the trail traverses below the wall and continues at the bottom on the other side.  The trail then switchbacks up beside the climbing rock on the far side, but never crosses the rock face.

Near the top, the trail crosses many rock slabs and a few small cairns near the top help guide you to the pass.

The water over the slabs is shallow, however, our feet got plenty wet (which felt good on this hot day).  We were glad to have extra socks to change into after crossing the last stream on the way out.

There is one tree across the trail that we had to crawl under. Not too difficult, just inconvenient.