This was the furthest of the peaks I'd visited so far, so had to get up in the middle of the night and drive a couple hours to get there by 4:30a (heard the road was terrible – it was; and heard the parking filled up quickly – it did, likely from hikers who had camped overnight).

Almost immediately the trail was steeper than the previous peaks and left me a bit out of breath a few times. But the views and the sunrise were beautiful. Things flattened out at the meadow and really showed how the flora and fauna were quite different from the previous hikes. This range of mountains definitely has a different ecosystem and foundational formation – much more scree, grit, and sand – much less water – which resulted in different styles of plants and not much in the way of flowers etc compared to the previous hikes.

After the meadow, the trail returned to its steeper climbs. It was good to be able to rest at the saddle, though there were a good number of groups of people stopped there as well (a change from most of the way up, where I'd been mostly alone). The same was true after the somewhat taxing hike to the peak.  The peak itself is a relatively small area, and there were a couple dozen or more people all crowded in that area making more than a little ruckus. As such, I took a quick pic of the wooden peak marker, then wandered a bit towards the East Peak for a little picnic and quiet.

Once again, the hike back down was pretty easy – though it was definitely a longer trek than the prior hikes, and some of the scree made it slow going in a couple areas. But it was definitely a pleasant and relaxed trip down. That said, until one gets closer to the bottom, there is very little shade along this trail. And given the movement into summer, this is the first trail, even at the higher altitudes, where I had to change into shorts and a tshirt going back down. (The snowman in the pics was made on the single small patch of snow on the whole trail).

Once I got to the bottom, I noticed HOW different these mountains were – my legs were dusky with layers of collected dust from the trail, quite unlike all the other trails (even the Devil's Backbone etc).