Drive up Forest Road 42 and 42D to arrive at Rustler Park, the trailhead for the Crest Trail #270. I carried 2 1/2 gallons of water in my pack, along with hammock, bug netting, 1 change of clothes (3 changes for socks), first aid kit, portable phone charge, knife, and 2 days worth of MREs.

Began my ascent around 1800 on September 3 and arrived at Flys Peak to bed down for the night at 1930, about 3.2 miles from the start of the trailhead. Sunset was gorgeous from the crest trail, but I needed a head lamp to complete the last 30 minutes. The raspberry bushes rip your legs apart, so I would recommend wearing pants; the trail is fairly over grown with small brush and very narrow up until Chiricahua Peak and

I woke up on the summit of Flys Peak at 0520, packed up my gear, and watched sunrise on the East face before descending at 0610. I summitted Chiricahua Peak around 0720, which has a small elevation marker on a stone. I took a picture with it and moved on. I left a water and food cache at Eagle Spring so I could lose some weight, as my pack remained over 60lbs. I arrived at the snowshed peak trail at 0825 and summitted at 0900 exactly. The trail was very overgrown and the rock scramble made the ascent fun, but difficult. I bushwacked most of my way to the summit. I made my way down and headed to Sentinel peak, were I arrived at a sign around 1030 telling me I had 2.5 miles left, yet I only had 1/3 of a liter of water remaining. I deemed it too unsafe to proceed, so I went back to my water cache, refilled, and determined I was too tired to return. Therefore I took the the Crest trail back, accidentally following the Chiricahua saddle trail, which takes you out toward Monte Vista. Realizing my mistake, I bushwacked before finding an old trail covered with fallen trees to the summit of Chiricahua. There were plenty of cairns to keep my oriented.

After re-summitting Chiricahua peak, at 1300 I made lunch and relaxed for 45 minutes to recover from the intensive ups and downs of the ridge lines. There were thousands of lady bugs through out the peak at this time too. It felt like they were invading. I dusted off the lady bugs from my pack and made my way back, summitting South Flys Peak around 1420 and contemplating Anita Peak, but deciding against it. I ran into the first person I saw since beginning the hike cross bow hunting around this time. I returned to my car around 1620, stretching my legs out and driving back down a few minutes later. Overall, a very long hike, but full of beautiful nature and vistas. I hope to return to tackle Sentinel and Monte Vista soon.

Over the two days, I hiked 3.2 on 9/3 and 20.8 on 9/4. I gained approximately 5000 ft in elevation accounting for the ups and downs. My lowest points were Rustler Park at 8500 ft and Crest trail near Sentinel Peak at 8700ft. I gained 1200 climbing Flys Peak, lost 300 ft down, gained 400 to Chiricahua summit, lost 700 by the time I got to Juniper Spring, gained 600 to snowshed peak, lost the 600 back to Juniper Spring, and had about a 600 ft loss and 200 ft gain between the ups and downs along the crest trail headed to Sentinel Peak. I took roughly the same route back, except for summitting South Fly Peak, which added an extra 300 ft in elevation gain. Since anything I lost, I had to go back up, it equated to roughly 4900 ft ( then add 100 for anything I did not factor) to equal 5000ft.