My husband and I left around 12:30pm from the Horsethief Gulch Campground, sunny skies, temperatures in the 80's. There was a small wash at the very end of the campground road, we started there and simply headed NW along the pink line of our GPS to the flag at the peak on the screen. That entailed following the wash for awhile (maybe 1/2 a mile, and watch out for velcro plants), then heading up and over a few hills and into gullies. We normally never use GPS - either already know the trails, have great detailed trail descriptions, or someone else has GPS beta in our group. All we had was the peak co-ordinates punched into the GPS this time. We zig-zagged a bit trying to get our heads wrapped around how the GPS works (yes, I know, a wilderness mountain is not the best place to learn a GPS, but we're experienced hikers and my hubby has a ridiculously great sense of wilderness directions and reading the land). Not much bushwhacking, trees were fairly spaced apart, though lots of loose terrain underfoot. Came to a high point and was able to view three flat-headed peaks side-by side to the Northwest where the Horesthief Mountain was behind and out of view. Headed along a ridgeline aimed towards the peak furthest to the right of the three (the closest), crossed in front of it near the peak from right to left, then around to the left headed up towards the saddle between the middle peak and the one on the right we just crossed. Nearing the saddle gets pretty steep, had to watch our footing. Still had another 3/4 mile or so to go now atop the saddle. We could see the peak finally, but another one stood in our way of it. Followed the backside of the middle peak of the three to a ridgeline connecting us to the peak in front of Horsethief Mountain. Over that peak, along another ridgeline, and we finally landed around 3pm at the peak of Horsethief Mountain (a pile of rocks/small boulders). I was able to call home to Canada there with a Verizon cell signal (my mom's in the hospital, needed to see how she was doing. The campground and valley below had zero signal), then heard hoofs stepping on rock somewhere close, but couldn't see what animal was making the sound. Lots of horse or burrow prints the last mile or so leading to the peak, that would be my guess as to what was there. Also lots of hidden ground cacti, to which our hiking shoes did their best to protect us, but alas, the cacti won a small victory over each of us at some point. Ate our usual glorious apples at the peak, took a couple photos (used the camera timer in the camera+ app for iphone and balanced it in a tree branch to take the peak shot of the two of us), then headed back down along our previous tracks. Think it was around 6pm when we made it back to our campsite, and our GPS said we did 2998 feet of elevation gain, 8.4 miles. Could loosely compare the hike and terrain to Hayford Peak NV. Not a hike for beginners :)