Rainbow Lake, Rainbow Creek Trail & McAlester Trail — Saturday, Jul. 10, 2021

Entered from Bridge Creek trailhead. The PCT is in great shape headed to the Rainbow Lake Trail. Rainbow Lake Trail itself is in very poor condition. Dozens of fallen trees across trail and slight navigation difficulties as a result. The trail is severely overgrown in places. My legs were pretty cut up by the end of this section (pants recommended). Small snowfields remain on the ascent to Bowan Pass but we were able to avoid them by doing some minor scrambling. It would have been easy with microspikes. We had complete solitude along the length of Rainbow Lake trail and at the individual Rainbow Meadows campsite. Rainbow Creek trail is in great shape thanks to active trail crews we saw working on the deadfall. The ascent to McAlester pass had serious bug pressure, bug spray and headnet recommended. McAlester was a breeze otherwise and was completely snow free.