The first 2.2 miles of this trail have been redone, and it is becoming more popular due to how nice and relatively gentle this section is. You gain 1100 in this section before coming to an intersection with the short trail over to the Balcony. Enjoy the views from the balcony and return for a shorter day trip or continue on up the peak another 2 miles and 2200 feet to the summit. You will feel the burn in this section. It is a pleasant forest hike, and there are some viewpoints from the summit, but no open expansive views.
We had decided to go to the lake on the way back down. It is more of a pond really. The intersection used to be marked but is no longer. The trail is a bit overgrown, and you will need to be able to recognize where a path would logically go in order to find it in some places. There are also cairns and flagging tape in some areas. It is .7 and 750 to the pond. It is super steep in places. When you get to the boulder field, go left for lake instead of following cairns to right as we did before realizing it was a mistake. That set of cairns and flagging tape will lead you up to P3 and a loop trail.
Finally, we chose to find Dirty Harry's museum, an old logging truck, and this time we head better directions and after a short hike on an old road, we found it! Fun. Total on GPS Track for the day = 10.44 miles and 4230 elevation gain.
Dave's GPS Track