10.8 miles of hiking • 2500' elevation gain •
10 of 10 on the Bluebird scale! Started up the west side of the Hardy ridge trail. We hit snow at about 2300'. There wasn't solid cover, but where there was snow it was almost thigh deep in places. a lot of post holing. As we came out onto Hardy ridge proper, there snow was much less, but it seemed to be sticking in the rock fields. A lot of melting snow cover over moving rocks and holes. People were making it fine, but some care was required. Little ankle biting rock fields :) At about the last 50' of eg to the final Phlox ridge, the snow just looked to slippery to make it. Many people did after us though. On the east side of the loop there was a bit of slippery snow. Nothing deep though. Took the cutoff over to the Meta Bridge, with the intention of taking Don's cutoff to Hamilton's saddle. But in the end the snow had slowed us down enough that we just looped down the road on the east side of Hardy creek and headed back to the trailhead. Great day.
