The meadows at the very top of the trail are the highlight. Little dribbles of water crisscross the fields before they coalesce into Bean Creek; these tiny streams keep the growth very green and lush, supporting a surprisingly thick meadow of Indian Paintbrush and other flowers.
Incidentally, note the color of the mountain in the background, and how reddish-orange the rocks and dirt are. I am not sure why this is. But it seems to me that on the west side, I usually come back from a hike and the mud dries to a brownish-gray. On this hike, even the mud dried on my boots to more of a reddish-orange. Obviously the dirt/rock composition is different, but I'm not sure how or why.
There were other cool sights along the trail as well, including a lot of lupine in bloom:
I saw three flower types that I had not previously encountered. The first is elephant's head (Pedicularis groenlandica), the next two are scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata), and the fourth picture, I think, is Columbia monkshood (Aconitum columbianum).
There were also some nice views of the creek:
Finally, there were some sweet mountain views. Unfortunately, as you can see from the first of the next two photographs, a lot of the trees (I'm not sure what variety) are pretty brownish and sick-looking. This made the lower reaches of the trail a lot less interesting.
Still, a worthwhile hike! That is, if you don't mind walking 3 miles nonstop uphill. My advice: start early in the day. Some people I passed were starting on the trail quite late, at noon or even 1pm. While I don't expect people to get up at 4am with me, there are reasons to start an uphill hike, especially one east of the Cascade crest, early in the morning rather than during the hottest part of the day. Oh well, to each his/her own!
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