The down hike seemed a little too rocky in sections but since I'm proned to rolling over my ankles its a personal thing. I look at what I'm hiking through instead of what I'm hiking on.
A note that I fail to mention before is that as we departed the summit I noticed a hiker coming up who was moving "differently". I can't describe it any other way and that's what I mentioned to my hiking partner. When we finally reached each other I then noticed he was barefoot. A total member of the Blackfoot Tribe! Turns out he was none other than Barefoot Ted. Said he has done Whitney and the Boston Marathon barefoot. While we were chatting up walks his barefoot hiking partner. He runs lots of marathons barefooted.
The whole way down the mountain I kept telling myself "walk like Ted". In an attempt to place my feet in secure spots and not kick any rocks I watched my footing. It was the most boring 15 minutes I've ever spent.
We saw Ted again as we crossed the stream and he had on an extremely thin flat soled "Romanesqe" thong tied sandle. Seems he uses them for the trip down. As I watch him walk through the water and not over it I must say my feet were yelling at me to reconsider!
As you recall from our ridge hike, I have similar ankle issues with going down hill. Encountering rocky terrain makes it worse. Sometime I'll do the loop clockwise as I think the descent down would be easier on the joints.
