We parked at the Mount Wilson Trail Park.  The trailhead is up the street from Lizzie’s trail museum.  The first mile was pretty exposed.  There was a group of five red tail hawks flying overhead as we decided to take the Charlie Bell trail.  We continued heading by up and took a break at first water.  There was lots of water flowing.  We continued on up to Orchard camp.  We had a snack and talked to a nice woman who was relaxing, preparing to head back down. From there we headed up though some beautiful forest. There were a couple trees down and a very narrow rocky outcrop we uncomfortably had to shimmy past.  As we neared the old fire break, we saw a couple of deer.  We walked up the old toll road taking a break we’re the road meets the trail again.  That last mile was tough.  Narrow rocky trail, lots of pointy foliage.  Finally we arrived at the parking lot of the observatory and walked up to the Cosmic cafe where we had lunch and refilled our water.  We couldn’t find the summit marker.  After some stretches we started the trek back down.  We hiked the last half in the dark greeting several night hikers and trail runners along the way.
We finally arrived back fully exhausted, very sore and ready for much deserved epsom salt baths.   This is definitely a beast of a hike.