It took a little longer to get through Sisters due to the rodeo, but the trail head at Black Butte only had a few cars at the start of our hike. The road was a little rougher than I remembered, but with decent clearance and good tires its just a bumpy ride. We started just after 9AM and the weather was perfect with temps in the 50s. We had blue sky's with only a little haze on the horizon. It was quite cool in the trees, but we were plenty warm by the time we were pushing up the last half mile climb to the top and our legs were certainly feeling the burn! We had some company at the viewpoint but there was plenty of room for everyone. Belknap and Black Crater seemed to be challenging us off in the distance(and admittedly, looked a little taller, steeper, and more snow covered than I anticipated). By the time we finished taking some pics of the incredible line of cascade peaks, more and more fellow hikers were making it to the summit and it started to get a little crowded. We passed quite a number of people heading up while we were heading down and we were glad we started when we did. The upper trail head, that had been pretty quiet at 9AM, was was near maxed out with vehicles when we got back to the car. Sister's was even busier on our way back to Bend and we got stopped in rodeo traffic for a few minutes. We had planned to have lunch in Sisters, but decided we would have better luck just stopping at The Bite in Tumalo. A great decision in retrospect. With some food in our belly and rest for our pleasantly tired legs, we looked back on a perfect hike.