Having been to Throop Peak twice before, we’re quite familiar with the trail ascending the mountain’s north ridge from Dawson Saddle. Cynthia was with us for the weekend in Wrightwood, and we figured the moderate climb would be just the ticket to get her four miles closer to sixty while allowing Jane to gather some of the diminutive lodgepole pine cones she likes so much. So, after a leisurely morning, we arrived at the trailhead around 11am and headed up, Chris and Cynthia immediately lagging behind Jane whose boundless energy propelled her up the trail with ease – the other two of us felt the effects of not much in the way of conditioning, as this was our first excursion of any sort since July in Sequoia. That quickly became the order of the day, Jane waiting for Chris and Cynthia to catch up, only to zoom ahead again and repeat the process. By the time we had gained the eastward traverse across the north slope of the peak, Jane declared she’d see us at the top and off she went. Chris and Cynthia eventually reached the junction with the PCT, meeting another hiker there who had seen no sign of Jane – together, we three walked the 30 yards or so south on the PCT before turning west up the Throop Peak use trail, and it was this unsigned turnoff that Chris worried Jane might have missed being on her own. Continuing at a deliberate (ok, slow) pace to the summit, Chris met a different hiker who reported he had seen Jane further west on the PCT near Mt. Hawkins – mapless, Jane had missed the use trail and kept walking westward. The guy had told her she was heading the wrong way but had not see her since – after waiting for Cynthia to reach the summit, Chris started down Throop’s SW ridge to see if Jane was anywhere in sight, and she appeared below at that moment, a little tired from her cross-country climb up the steep southern face of the mountain. Reunited, we hung out on Throop’s summit for about 30 minutes and ate lunch – enjoying the crystal clear views all the way to Long Beach harbor and a hazier vista to downtown LA, Mt. Hawkins looked attractively close just 3/4-mile distant below Throop Peak’s SW shoulder. As Jane had walked more than a mile in that direction earlier, Chris was surprised to hear her suggest that we make our way to Hawkins’ summit as well before heading back via the PCT around the east side of Throop. Chris and Cynthia were both game, so down the mountain we went, following a different use trail that went directly down the ridgeline before dropping sharply southward into a shallow dell – we found the PCT on the other side of the swale and continued southwestward to Mt. Hawkins. The additional distance meant Cynthia completed Mile 43 atop Hawkins, and the views here, being more open to the south than from Throop, were spectacular – it was 3pm by this time, and the low afternoon sun lit up the Pacific with a golden glow. We didn’t stay as long here, but started to gather Jane’s precious pine cones in earnest as we made our way back up the PCT. Eventually, it was Chris and Cynthia who forged ahead to the Dawson Saddle Ridge junction as Jane hung back to scour various pine cone graveyards – about a half mile down the ridge trail, Chris decided to wait for Jane to make sure she didn’t lose her way again, and Cynthia (quite the confident hiker now) headed off on her own. Jane showed up about 20 minutes later, and we plowed on down the trail, catching recurring views of the sun now lower behind colorful cirrus clouds. Cynthia waited briefly for us at the bottom of the trail, and we all crossed the highway together back to Jane’s new Pathfinder as Cynthia completed Mile 46. No GPS track since Chris’ phone died on the way to Mt. Hawkins, so we used Jane’s step counter to figure round trip mileage at six. Though the walk up Dawson Saddle Ridge felt steeper than past visits, the weather was excellent and the views even better.