The trail was rough as advertised, lots of elevation gain through brambly, slightly overrun trail in an area apparently still recovering from a fire. At first sight of Oak Creek I was nervous that there would be no water at all, however thankfully it was running pretty well higher up though the stream crossings were no problem at all.
The open meadows and burnt old forest allowed for great views at our objective for the following day.
We made our way up to Summit Meadow to camp for the night, unaware that with a bit more climbing we would have found some great campsites near where we'd break from the trail to enter the Black Mountain/Diamond Peak bowl that we'd take up to the summit next day. In any case, the stream near our site was superb.
We woke at sunrise the next day to set out on our quest for the summit. We were pleased to find great weather on the way up, and only encountered minimal snow along the creekbed coming down from the cirque, making for a straightforward climb along slabs and ledges.
The view up the cirque to a sub-peak on the Black Mountain/Diamond Peak ridge
The arduous slog started after the bowl climbing up through a chute to the base of Diamond Peak, alternating from rock-hopping on talus to slip-sliding up scree. We followed beta to choose one of the three chutes, and we ended up taking the right-side one trying to hug the rock wall when possible to keep from sliding down the slope with anything unstable. The way down we erroneously chose the leftmost from this picture, which was also a pain but nothing more than Class 2.
Rae lakes were all thawed and no visible snow was seen in the valley, though there is certainly some snow left over on north-facing slopes, including Glen Pass.
The summit was fantastic, so much so that we spent a good 45 minutes enjoying the fine views and trying to name off peaks for future, more-ambitious trips.
The descent was as painful as we imagined, but we managed to trudge through the talus and scree down to our camp and back to the car, a full 7000' feet below. My knees weren't happy with me by the end, but my head was once again clear and my hands steady with my mountain withdrawal subsided, at least for now.
