just curius as to what your take is on steep trail. we have done 13 of the 4k's. i would say the steepest being east osceola from the kanc and also cannon from lonesome lake. how do these stack up to the others? thank you!

Those are both right up there amongst the steepest. The KRT up to Cannon is also one of the crappiest, in my opinion, from either end.

Among other common 4k approaches that are steep:

The Hancock Loop. The south part is steeper than the north but they both are steep.
The Ammo Trail above Gem Pool until the Lake of the Clouds Hut
Carter-Moriah Trail from the hut to the summit of Carter Dome
Wildcat Ridge trail on either end
Flume Slide Trail
North and South Slides on North Tripyramid


There are others that people will mention like Huntington Ravine, King Ravine, Glen Boulder, Boott Spur Link, Walden Trail, Tom Wiggin Trail, and so on, but those are less commonly used at least on someone's first go 'round.

Probably a whole bunch of others that I left out too.

Those are fairly steep, upper-middle of the pack I'd say, but they're also fairly short and unexposed so I wouldn't put them too high on the difficulty scale. My first trip up Washington was via Huntington Ravine which takes the cake for me in both steepness and difficulty.

There's a thread here on a similar subject if you're interested.

Here's another steep one-- the Dilley trail. Very short and not that hard but basically a .5 mile rock scamble. I was waiting for my kids to finish at Lost River and took the dog up-- literally. (I had to hoist her a half dozen times). When I was a kid my Grandma used to call something really hard a Dilley. Wonder if that is where the name came from (although it's not really that hard). Never done Huntington's and from the description probably never will! Someday I hope to do the Knife Edge though. [/list]