I had been dreaming about this route for a few years, and glad I could finally experience in all of its glory. I was blessed with a beautiful July day, with incredible sunny weather. The approach to red slate had a beautiful valley. Red Slate lives up to its name with a lot of reddish large talus pieces. Once up and over I dropped into another beautiful valley. From that point on the running was a bit smoother. The switchbacks up to Lake Virginia didn't last as long as I expected, and the view of the lake while coming in was magnificent. From there on the connection from Virigina, to Purple, then Duck had some nice punchy climbs, and the downhill back to the Coldwater trail head felt longer than I expected. Overall 10/10 would do again. Plenty of water sources along the way made it easy to filter when needed.