The trailhead is right off the Mackenzie Hwy and unlike Black Butte, you pull into the parking lot as soon as you turn off the Hwy. The parking lot is not huge, but there were maybe 5 other vehicles and still plenty of room when we started at 8:30AM. The first 1.5 – 2Miles is mostly burned forest but it is starting to green up again and some flowers were blooming, which created a beautiful contrast. This section had A LOT of tree fall and many short detours were needed to get around the fallen logs. More of a nuisance than an actual obstacle. The last mile up the crater steepens and there were some small snowfields covering sections of the trail. At times, it was challenging to follow the extract trail but we made use of the tracks made by those who beat us to the top. We had to cross snow a few times but with poles this was no issue. As we crested the top of the crater, we were blown away by the sudden and incredible view of North Sister that was much closer than we had anticipated. A short walk along the top of the crater brought us to the “summit”. However, the true summit is a very short “scramble” up a rock formation. I would recommend going up the rocks as its very easy, safe, and worth saying you did.  To the South, the views of the Three Sisters and Broken Top are incredible and to the Northwest Mt Washington is also very splendid. This has become one of my new favorite hikes and viewpoints in Central Oregon and seems to be very underrated and off most peoples radar.