Co-challenger Noel and I tackled our first peak on Wednesday, 1/10/24, departing Sierra Madre via the Mt Wilson trail.  Parking is easy on a weekday and we able to park right at the trailhead.  Nice departure park adjacent to the trail with restrooms and water.  Conditions were perfect, high 40 – low 50s temp. and clear conditions, no wind.  Hiking was beautiful and very peaceful, with only a few local residents on the trail, all of them turning back by Orchard Camp.  Hike definitely gets more strenuous on the second half of the trail beyond Orchard Camp.  Hikers unfamiliar with the trail need to pay attention once they're on the old toll road section.  There is a cut-off back onto the single-track trail approximately half-way along the toll road section.  We missed this and had to continue on to the summit via the toll road, which was slightly less scenic and added approximately one mile to our total distance.

The summit was a welcome lunch stop three and a half hours into our climb and we enjoyed a brief rest and warm-up in the sun (temp. a brisk low 40s at the summit) on the benches of the Cosmic Cafe.  The climb down was obviously faster and uneventful, but care needs to be taken on some of the steeper and slicker sections of the trail.  Again, being a Wednesday we had the bulk of the trail to ourselves, and besides the summit, did not encounter a single person above Orchard Camp.  On the return, we did encounter a number of late afternoon local afternoon hikers on the bottom two miles of the trail.

All in all a fantastic first summit for our Hump-Day hike!