Junction with the spur trail to Freel Peak. I think this is a realitivly new trail, as many of the guidebooks describe this route as a cross-country scramble.

Freel is the leftmost highpoint.

"Sensitive Plant Area" :) The TRT continued on toward Star Lake beyond this lingering snowfield. This saddle, at ~9400ft, is the highpoint of the TRT.

The spur trail was quite well developed with cut stairs and no routefinding issues. Quite steeply uphill with just shy of 1500 ft to gain in a mile.

A brief section of the trail edged up against this NE facing bowl. I think thats unnamed peak 9546 in the distance.

These whitebark pines would grow gradually more stunted as the elevation increased. They're ~6 feet here and would be mere foot tall shrubs by the summit.

Sheer cliff at the top of the bowl. The trail veered away from the side before reaching the top.

There was one big snowfield about midway up the spur, which some folks had used to glissade down. The soil up here is mostly sandy gruss and tiresome to slog through.

Thought this was the summit at first, but its (I think) Peak 10560 at the end of the ridge. Freel was off to the left.

This was the Freel summit about a quarter mile away at this point.