After a pre-hike treat from Sister's Bakery, we made our way up the Mackenzie pass. The parking lot for the PCT/Belknap Crater Trailhead is just past the Dee Wright Observatory and easy to find. There was plenty of parking when we arrived around 7:50AM and only one other car in the lot. The trail starts at a gentle incline through alpine forest and shrubs. Just after a quarter mile your feet hit lava rock for the first time but you are quickly back on sandy trail and surrounded by trees, however don't be fooled, as by about 3/4 of mile in, you will be back in the lava field and you will stay there for nearly the entire hike. We refereed to these initial patches of trees as islands because on satellite, that's what they look like. Lush islands in an ocean of lava. Hiking on lava rock trail is more of a nuisance than it is an actual challenge. Just have good trail shoes or better yet, a hiking boot and mind your ankles. We tried hiking with and without using our poles, and found that they may get in your way more than they help(but you will want them for the final climb up the crater!)

Our first objective was “Little Belknap Cone” and you cant miss it rising up out of the lava field. The turn off is 2.2 miles into the hike and is well marked with a big wooden sign. It is just under a half mile detour(out and back) to get to the top of the cone and I highly recommend it. The landscape is other worldly and reminiscent of either Lord of the Rings or a Martian landscape. The final climb up the cone is steep, but with solid footing the trail is well defined. The top of the cone is spacious and has incredible 360 views. You will feel like you are once again at the top of a little island in a huge lava ocean. The only downside is that this is one out of two places where there were a ton of flies and were very annoying.

After a little break we headed down the little cone and made our way back to the PCT trail and towards our actual objective, Belknap Crater. From the turnoff to Little Belknap Cone, it is only another .25 miles down the PCT to the turn off for Belknap crater. Take a left. You cant miss it. The lava rock finally turns to soft sand and the trees return, creating a perimeter around the bare Crater. Across this flat sandy plain you may notice a strong scent of dog poop. After checking our boots and wondering if a fellow hiker made use of the privacy of the tree line, we realized it was actually these little white flowers that were growing all over the place. Ignore the scent and make your way up the base of the crater. This is where it gets steep fast. Fortunately, the trail winds around the northern side of the crater and not straight up the ridiculously steep western face. Even still, this is a half mile of climbing a very steep “sand dune”. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. There is a “false summit” where you will see a couple wind breaks for camp sights. The trail continues for a bit to the real summit. However, we found the swarm of flies to be so intolerable, that we took our break(and pics) from the wider, flatter, and less fly infested false summit. There were still a lot of flies(and a few bees) so we didn't stick around for too long.

The way down is fast as you will feel like your skiing on sand. After dumping the sand form our shoes we headed back into the lava field. We encountered a group of PCT'ers hailing from Sydney, Australia. We shared some water and electrolytes as this is a notorious section of the trail for thru hikers and about a 14 mile “water carry”.

Before we knew it we were back to the car and ready for a big lunch in Sister's. This may be my favorite Peak yet due to the uniqueness of the landscape. I highly recommend the detour to Little Belknap Cone, as I personally think it was a lot more interesting than Belknap Crater proper, and the views are just as good.