23km, 8 hours and 1.5km elevation.
From the car park its a couple of kms down to the trail head. From here you follow winding uphill switch backs through the pine forest until you reach the "amphitheatre", this is the canyon which the peak looks into. We pulled up for a feed before heading up the ridge.
Another up hill slog greeted us to the first of 2 false summits which you trek around before you hit the main peak, rock hoping around and navigating via little rock stacks made by other hikers to find our way. The next mission was up to a shaley/ smooth rock section which you navigate diagonally up and around to where you see the first glimpse of the summit. By this time the group had split and had a fair bit of distance between us all with some of us feeling defeated.
Snow was everywhere in sections up here and it was still continuously steep and uphill, the last section to the peak was loose rock and getting a solid footing wasn't easy and very slow going.
We all made it to the top super stoked of the achievement and celebrated with a feed and some beers. The walk back down was an absolute nightmare. Most physically challenging thing iv ever put myself through, so so unbelievably stoked I can say I did it!! wooo.
