The trail itself is a gem - a well-graded and maintained tread that climbs steadily, but gently, through forests of pine and madrone.
But the trail breaks out into meadows from time to time, which gave me some good views of Grayback Mtn to the W,
the Red Buttes to the SW,
and the defunct Acorn Woman Peak LO (it's now a met station) to the E (arrow),
About 2 miles up the trail, I turned N and headed XC directly upslope toward the summit. As I climbed higher, Wagner Butte came into view to the E,
and some really interesting horsetail cloud formations started to pass over me.
After reaching the summit ridge a few hundred yards E of the summit, I tried following the ridge top to the summit. Perhaps a good idea in the Gorge or SW Washington, but a bad one down here - and one that my years of climbing in California's Southern Sierras should have stopped me from acting on. The subsequent laceration by live & dead manzanita and buckbrush exposed not only flesh but also my hubris for not adjusting my hiking to local conditions. Lesson learned - by painful experience, as usual.
But I did eventually get to the summit,
with views in all directions, but to the N there were wavering contrails,
Bald Pk in the foreground, Medford beyond under a white inversion layer, and McLoughlin on the horizon.
I got off the summit and back to the trail by side-hilling below the brush-choked ridge - easy going and seemingly the way to do it in this terrain. A short (6 mi RT, 1800' EG) hike that I'll likely be doing again (but sans summit - one teachable moment is enough!) once wildflower season rolls around.
