My friend Jane is an unabashed peak bagger. She wanted to summit Hawkins, so we headed up there first. Then took the ridgeline down past Middle, Sadie, South, SomeOther, and WhichWhatWhereNow Hawkins. We may have summited some of these. I know we skipped a couple, and at one point got entirely off course and stumbled around in some pretty flowers and shiny things (mylar balloons..). This ridge is really quite nice, considering the fire damage. The trail is easy to follow until you get toward the saddle before South Hawkins. That's where we got off track, but with the clear views in all directions, you can't really get lost.
Wandered up to see the burned remains of the South Hawkins fire lookout, and cracked some bad jokes about that ("Looks like somebody wasn't paying attention...!" har har har) The hike along the old road back toward Windy Gap is in bad shape. Lots of rockslides, downed trees, etc. There were so many animal tracks here I couldn't make them out, except that it is a deer superhighway for sure, and there is at least one resident adult bear, and one cub. Just when we were getting hot, and tired of the obstacle course, we stumbled on the most beautiful running spring where we soaked our shirts and bandanas, and filled up on some untreated GiardiaAde (low carb!). It was good, but not as nice as the water at Little Jimmy spring. Saw big'ol bear tracks in the mud here!!
The trail back up to Windy Gap is a federal disaster area. It was frustrating to climb over countless downed trees, and traverse scary scree slopes. But most of all it was sad to see that someone had worked really hard making it a nice trail, and now it's all been destroyed. This was obviously once a beautiful trail that had many work hours put into it. It will take many more if it is ever restored.
Back up at Windy Gap, we noticed a knocked-over sign saying the Crystal Lake area is closed....whoops. I knew that, but I don't know if that means the trail is closed or what. We didn't go into Crystal Lake proper at all.
Total mileage was about 10.5, with 3,200' gain. This was a nice day, and I'd recommend the hike -but maybe skip South Hawkins, it just took up time and you get the views from many other places on the trail.
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