Drove out to the Middle Fork Lot with partially sunny skies, but it was blustery. There were a lot of people out today - most of the spots along the way were at capacity. There was evidence of about 5 recently cleared trees from the MF Road. The facilities near the horse parking had the door ajar and one roll of TP shredded by animals as a previous report stated. The main parking was full and about 1/3 full in this area sans the trailer spots.
We headed across the road with the intention of doing the calm CCC, as we're nursing some injuries. The winds seemed to be calmer here than the drive in. This area was so green as the light hit the moss and ferns. Lots of fungi too! After getting up to the CCC, we took the unmarked trail up to the Nordrum Lookout and kept going. We didn't know how far we were going, but just went with it. We kept checking our mileage, but we weren't getting far for the elapsed time. Maybe our trackers were off. It turned out to be a short mile to a viewpoint, with an option to go to Quartz Ridge. Apparently, the mile climb gained 1400 feet, so that explained things. We just did the endpoint, which had views of the Middle Fork valley with Thomson in the background. The trail was mostly clear and well-defined except for a few extra-ferny sections where it was hard to see the roots and a few rocks. We headed back down and did a bit of the CCC, then over to the Middle Fork Trail. There were so many folks out today, we had seen just 2 on the CCC and none above that.
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