I love this hike! We had the whole mountain to ourselves today. The skeleton forest is interesting on many levels. Not only are the trees void of color, trunks hollowed out, and the branches curled, but when the wind is blowing (like today) you can hear a strange and unique whistle as it blows through the trees.  A couple of times I found myself turning around to look behind me!  As we climbed higher, eventually the trees became green again and we saw lots of beautiful wildflowers. One of the best parts of this hike is the view from the top. Normally it is stunning, but today it was hard to see much at all because of the smoke.  It was pretty anyway!  The wind blew hard and eventually cleared up a view of Mt. Washington as we came down and got close to the bottom of the trail.  All in all, a very good day!