Southern Echo Cliff

"Pleasant moderate hike - made a big loop starting and ending at Cathedral Rock parking lot. Up to Echo Cliff via the start of the Cathedral Rock trail, then veered off left where trail turns right - the hardest part - steep, as to be expected, and loose rock and soil, of course. Nice view from the top. Then continued south (up) on faint trail, very pleasant, and intersected the South Loop. Down the South Loop, past Echo Overlook, to the spur trail to the waterfall. Up the waterfall a bit then cut east - went too far east (east of Griffith Peak) and had to backtrack to Southern Echo Cliff. Then descended on cairned trail and used the east gully to get down down to the waterfall. Then all the way down on the South Loop trail. Distance and elev. estimated, some nonsense with my tech cutting in and out and recording incomplete tracks lately." — tracyt • May 27, 2026

"Skipped the last day of a conference in Vegas to get on top of an ultra-prominent peak. Time well spent. AK and I were up and down in 8h 17m. Some fast people up there! Met a guy who completed the loop in 6 hours, but he said it was very dangerous! Snow was ice on the morning ascent. Spikes were probably the efficient choice, but there were some sections where crampons would have been the safe choice. Cold at the top, below freezing, snowed on our descent. Warmed up in the switchbacks. Great day in the mountains!" — zachmitch • Apr 24, 2026

"We hit Southern Echo Cliff peak. Then instead of going back to the trail we decided on a whim to attempt a ridge line up to the summit of Griffith. There was some class 3 or 4 climbing and route finding. Little nervous but all went well. I would recommend helmets and webbing if you attempt. " — derek-puraVida • Jun 2, 2024

"I started this hike with my dad at 4 AM and ended it at 5 PM. The hike up to Griffith Peak Junction was the best part of the trail. We had overlooks and attractions along this section. We finnaly got to Griifith Peak Junction. The section after this was really boring. The trail wound throuGh a section called The Meadows. The we went through some dead bristlecone forest. It was the same way till the treeline and airplane crash site. The plane was cool. The summit was really great! We got 360 views of everything. I love benchmarks so it was a treat to see 2 benchmarks on the summit. The windbreak had enough snow to make a snowman in, and there was a register and antenna site at the summit too. My dad also made a sign at the summit. Sorry for only uploading the summit photos, Peakery says all my other photos were too small." — lcnguyen • Dec 6, 2021

"We knew there were storms in the forecast, but we figured we might be able to bang out a couple of short hikes before the rain hit. We headed up the South Loop Trail , then went cross-country up to Southern Echo Cliffs. The route was better than I expected! After that, we hiked back down with the intention of doing Mary Jane Overlook, but the sky opened up." — Kevin • Jul 30, 2017