Whoa!!! Up, up, and UP some more!  I thought after the first 2.5 miles it was supposed to be easy… we’d approach the fire road and then it would be easier.  Not really   13.5 miles , 3,491’ elevation gain… 3 hours 17 minutes up, 2 hours 15 minutes to get down.  We came up after Saturday’s rain, so good news… no dust!  But it’s a tough hike with all up and very little leveling out.  The first 3 miles is 1,804’ of gain but the last 3-1/2 is not much less.  Trail was pretty good as we literally ran in to one couple coming up while we were heading down and that’s it.  A little muddy in some sections of the fire road and cloudy all the  way up… this was a good thing because of the low clouds we couldn’t see how much higher we were going to have to go.  The sun literally did not show up until the last 1/4 mile.  At 5,000’ we had fresh snow from the night before… a lovely powder that was nice to walk on.    All in all, a strenuous hike that we plowed through anyway… our 6th peak bagged… only 12 to go (and it’s only February!)