Wimble Scale: Hard, Length: 9 miles, Climb: 2200 feet, Time: 5 hours
It's the Rhus Ridge to the mountain and back, "self-flagellation" hike.
It's a one-mile steep, hard hike to the ridge, then about 3 miles of mostly easy, gradual climb, and then about a mile of steep and really steep climb to the top. We'll just go until it stops being fun or we reach the backpack camp.
Of course, if we reach the backpack camp, we will have done the proposed reduced challenge hike for this year, so you can just check that off your list. So far, not too many people want to do the "what the hell is wrong with you" uber-challenge hike we really wanted to do, so we're proposing a reduced challenge hike - this hike. And if we turn around somewhere near that last mile, that's fine, we'll just do the hike again later, and later, until we get it done.
So, we leave here at 9 and begin the hike at about 9:30 to 9:45. It's about 10 to 12 miles round trip, if we go all the way, so plan on 4 to 6 hours. Parking is very limited at Rhus Ridge, so we may have to park most of a mile away.
