I've hiked sections of this before, but never to the summit. This was the time, on a warm but not too brutal day. I had remembered this as an easier hike so when we saw the "extremely difficult" sign I kind of dismissed it. It did get tough at the end! My friend Marcia decided to stop when, as she says, we got to a sheer rock wall (it wasn't quite that bad) but I really wanted to finish so she said to go ahead and she'd wait. I had such a good time taking on the last part to summit. I put some of my rock climbing skills from the gym. I wished I had my trail shoes on, because regular running shoes were not great under these conditions. But I made it and it felt great. I hustled down the best I could because Marcia was waiting and it was getting late in the day. She screamed "I thought you were dead!" when I finally got back to her :) She was like a mountain goat on the way down and we got back in plenty of time before the sun started to set. I loved this hike - I don't know if I would have been brave enough to do it especially on my own, before and I'm so glad I did.