This place lived up to the hype and was absolutely beautiful with golden larches.
But, it’s one of the busiest trails I’ve ever been on in my life - more than places like rattlesnake ledge, or even Yosemite. We took the untraditional route and arrived at 2:30 pm and drove straight to a spot in the parking lot after passing cars 1 mile from the trailhead. We went CW to have a gentler descent which proved to be wise because we were the only ones going up that way. The crowds coming down as we were going up were insane, pile ups of literally 100 people would be coming down. Not very many people knew to stop for uphill hikers which was annoying. By the time we were coming down there were few people coming up the lake Ann side which was nice and felt like a normal amount of hikers. With lots of stops for pictures (of the larches and crazy crowds) it took us a little under 4 hours and we were back to the car by 630.
There seemed to be many we passed on our way down who were still going up and were moving very slowly, I hope they came prepared with headlamps because it was pitch black on our drive home by 715. If you are not an experienced, fit, and fast hiker please allocate at least 5-6 hours for this hike or come prepared for the dark.
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