I awoke at 4a, and started out from the Mitchell Canyon TH shortly 
before 6a. Because the park
doesn't open before 8a, and because there is no parking for the last mile before 
the entrance,
I had a few
extra miles to put in by parking a long ways down the road. There was very little trouble with
route-finding. There is a fine map at the TH kiosk that is very helpful. In addition, I carried
Matthew Holliman's excellent directions from SummitPost (there is a link at the bottom of this page)
which was all I really needed. Though it had rained a good deal the day before, the trails were not
overly muddy and little of it stuck to my boots. While the skies had started promising (stars out
when I was driving enroute),
the 
top 500ft of the summit was buried in clouds and by the afternoon the
sky had become mostly overcast. But the cool weather turned out to be excellent for uphill hiking.
Wildflowers were out, 
shooting stars, 
lupine, paintbrush, California poppy,
several varieties of daisies, and many 
others I don't know the names of.
The grasses were lush and very green, the oaks had their
new leaves, and even the abundant poison oak looked fresh with their new leaves. There was water in
all the creeks, but not overflowing - little rain in the last month has brought the flow to tame levels.
I enjoyed the hike up to 
Eagle Peak and especially along 
Bald Ridge on my way to
Prospectors Gap. In
the vicinity of Devils Pulpit I took the use trails directly up the ridge, and climbed most of the very
fun class 3 rock as direct as I could along the ridgeline (at least one place was more like class 4, but
very decent holds). It was cloudy at the summit so I had no views, though I walked around and read the
summit 
placards and checked out the 
observation deck atop the 
summit building.
I was the only one at the top at 9a until a ranger drove up in a pickup and left a few minutes later.
I then retraced my steps to 
Prospectors Gap and continued up to 
North Peak.
I was impressed by the amount
of telecomunication gear that is attached to the main tower at the summit,
the cables coming down so thick that they had to build 
special flumes to direct them
all into a 
small building a few hundred feet
away. From North Peak I took 
the ridgeline north towards Mt. Olympia.
Though Matthew described this as
very loose class 3, I would have called it class 2, loose in only one section, and not too bad (meaning
little exposure if one should fall) - I rather enjoyed it a great deal.
After reaching 
Mt. Olympia I headed down the fire road. About a
half mile down from the peak I decided to take a cross-country route down the East Ridge. This was not
only a shorter route to intersect the Falls Trail, but it was quite fun as well, with abundant
wildflowers and 
grassy slopes.
Once down on the Falls Trail, I followed that in combination with a few other trails back to the
trailhead at Mitchell Canyon, returning just after 12p. I saw a total of 10 people all day. I would
imagine the weekends see considerably more traffic. A very enjoyable outing indeed!