Blue skies at black butte

This has been my season starter hike for the last 3 years.  Helps me see how conditioned i am, ????, or not.  Beautiful weather with low winds- sadly about 3/4 up there was a prescribed control burn outside of Sisters that caused smoke to obscure the 3 Sisters range but otherwise the surrounding mountains were gorgeous.  The snow was quite slushy and off trail i went hip deep near a downed tree while following other peoples foot steps- there was quite a bit of snow still on top far side by the deck cabin area – interestingly little to no snow at the base of lookout tower.  I thought the vegetation looked oddly dry and the trail had a lot of fallen pine needles covering the first part of the trail. Overall a fantastic experience that i might go a second time and do the longer trail.