We drove out Saturday afternoon and camped for the night off Jenks Lake Road in the dispersed camping area. This allowed us to be closer to the trailhead Sunday morning. We still didn't start until about 7:45am but we had the trail to ourselves for over two hours until we saw another hiker.

As we climbed we had some hikers coming down but the trail traffic was fairly light. The heat wasn't too bad on the climb up with the elevation and nice breeze throughout the day. The spring just after Limber Pine Bench campground was wonderful to refresh both on the way up and way down.

This hike is a slug fest though and the 8 miles from the summit back to the car felt like a death march towards the end. It got a little warm on the descent in the super exposed fire damage areas but not unbearable. Unfortunately, with the burned out trees and fire damage the hike had a different feel and was not as beautiful as when I did it in 2020.