Tent Ridge Horseshoe

A solid intro to moderate scrambling, with one catch: check your direction before you start.

We misread AllTrails and went counterclockwise, which turned out to be the harder way around. The tradeoff was worth it as going that direction had mountain ranges laid out in front of us for the whole ridge walk. But the counterclockwise descent is much more difficult. It's a long stretch of near-vertical boulders, scree, and loose dirt, and we ended up crawling down on all fours. If you want the easier version, go clockwise.

The trail has a bit of everything. It starts flat through forest with horse flies and mosquitos, so bring bug spray. There's a landslide section early on where you climb over fallen trees, then the forest opens onto exposed rock with no shade, so the heat climbs fast. The first real test is a steep wall of scree and loose gravel that looks worse than it is. With good boots there's enough packed rock for traction. After that its smooth sailing through the ridgeline which is the payoff.

Overall it's not too tough, and the mix of forest, scree, ridge, and valley keeps it interesting the whole way. A great first moderate hike with great views going either direction.