Horse Heaven Hills — Saturday, Mar. 3, 2018

I wanted to take advantage of the somewhat nice weather this Saturday (still cold in early March) and try a new hike in the area. I thought this would be a quick hike but greatly underestimated this challenging little gem. I took the right fork near the trailhead as described on the trail description page. It's the more direct route, almost straight up the hill. Although it was just over 0.75 miles from the trailhead to the cairn at the summit, it took me approximately 45 minutes with 2 short breaks along the way. I consider myself an above average hiker with regards to speed and endurance but this was easily the most difficult stretch of hiking I've done in several years. After summiting, I followed the dirt road to the left that traversed the ridgeline to a 2nd cairn, slightly lower in elevation on a neighboring hilltop. From here I followed the trail down (this is the trail that you would have summited on if you went left at the fork near the trailhead), eventually leading back to the trailhead. While this trail was less direct and had switchbacks, it was still very steep. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this trail for families, but if you want a good challenge or are training for a big climb, this one's hard to beat. In total, my loop covered 1.93 miles.