It felt so good to finally get Humphrey's Peak this year, that I wanted to go back and do it again - this time via the Weatherford Trail! I knew this was a beast and going to be long, but DANG it was a long day. About 5250' gain (a vertical mile), and some of that was retracing elevation loss, and about 24 miles total from Schultz Pass trailhead to the summit and back again. It was a long but gorgeous day - hiking in the inner basin, up on the ridge of the bowl, was just incredibly beautiful. The first two miles have not quite 1000' of gain, and then once you hit the actual Weatherford trail that used to be a highway for Model T's to take people near the summit of the current snowbowl area - well, then it becomes a gentle and very even grade. I'd say about 400' gain/mile? You spend a good long time at around 10,800' along the inner rim of the bowl between Doyle/Fremont and then the Fremont/Agassiz saddle. Then you climb back up again and eventually leave the treeline and stay above that while you pass tantalizingly close to Agassiz (which you cannot hike to; it HAS to be a snow ascent, it cannot be done on bare rock) then drop down to the saddle and join the masses (literal masses) of people who have come up through the Humphreys Peak trail with the trailhead at the snowbowl. But you, you know the difference; you're already ~11 miles in when you hit the saddle and that last mile; you know you have a much longer way back home. That being said, I felt better on the ridgeline this time than I did three or four weeks ago when I hit Humphreys before, so I'm clearly improving, and that's good! I need to improve. Bugs were AWFUL at the summit of Humphreys; these weird things that were bigger than gnats (but swarmed like them) and smaller than black flies. They landed on you and stayed on you and it was ICKY. We didn't stay long at the summit, turned around and headed back down to the saddle where we elected to eat a meal before heading for the final way out. I'd say I'd have been comfortable if the hike had ended at the 20 mile mark, and I'd have been tired and ready to quit at the 22 mile mark. I think the last 2 miles was a lot of willpower - but in the end, I'm pretty proud of how it went, our time (13.5 hours total for a 24 mile hike with a mile vertical gain), and I really did find the Weatherford trail to be incredibly beautiful. I'll be back because I'd like to get Doyle, Fremont, and Schultz peaks... but as I type this, the Pipeline fire is ravaging that whole area and I'm so worried.