The trail drops down in the forest, soon it branches in front of a Tombstone Prairie Meadow. A loop trail around the meadow. We took the right (longer) side, to check out the area, looking for camping spots. Hackleman Creek has no water. At the other end of the meadow, the trail goes a bit up to highway, and cross the highway to pick up the trail to the left (west). Fairly soon, we hit some small flowering slope, and then, to this beautiful ridge filled with larkspur and bluehead gilia. Here you can see Cone Peak, which I intended to scale. A lot of people taking photos here. Too pretty to go on.
Continue the trail to a narrower stretch, with no short of flowers. To the right, there's a boot track up to some rocky area. Follow the track into woods, very overgrown, eventually emerged out to the flowery slope to Cone Peak. Trail gets fainter and then disappeared altogether. Parts of this section is a bit of loose rocks, so take your time. What a great place to slow down. Every short steps up, the view gets better. Again, the bluehead gilia was nodding everywhere. 
After cresting a rocky false summit, it's a slanting ridge to the end. There were 3 guys there, two are overweight. We had a long conversation with them, after I stupidly asked why Gary was carrying a hand gun. Interesting fellows. Mike is volunteering with the Eugene police department. He did most of the talking. Shawn added some details. They mentioned two places that I may want to checkout in the future: Devil's Staircase Falls (bushwhack + creek walk), Wolf Rock (scramble). You can see how steep some short sections are in this photo: Taryn was putting her poles. Hands work better.
Back on the main trail, we started to seeing other hikers again. Continued to Iron Mt. though some forest. Turn left up Iron Mt trail. About a mile switchback up to the new Iron Mt Lookout, opened in 2009. You can see the remnant of the old lookout a bit lower. Flowers on the way up. Interesting rock formation. 360° view. Hood is now obscured by Cone Peak. Here you can see highway-20 winding below. We chatted with this family at the lookout, here accompanying grandma for her birthday.
On the way down, met Shawn first, and then his two buddies. Back at the junction, turn left to continue our loop. Once we reached our car, we took water filter and headed down the gravel road (gated) looking for Hackleman Creek. Not much water, but it is running. Washed. We then picked up our pack and hiked down to the meadow to find a camping spot. We had the whole place to ourselves. I forgot to apply repellent, got quite a few bites while eating dinner. The sky didn't get dark until 10pm. Stars were quite lovely, but not much sunset or sunrise to see from here. 7/1, Sunday. Packed out. Saw a runner on the other side of the meadow while having breakfast. Drove about 8 miles to Crescent Mountain's trailhead. There's about 2/3 miles of wide gravel road, passable in all vehicles. No facilities at TH, but there're two pit toilets at a big parking lot (Lava Lake Snopark) just off highway-20. The locks here don't quite work (bad alignment).
I chose this trail for beargrass. There are a lot, but only few were blooming. I think my timing is good, maybe a small year here. The first 1.3 miles you slowly loose elevation till this footbridge over Maude Creek, the only water source on this trail. After some boring flat trail, it starts to gain elevation, slowly. 3 miles from TH, emerge from the forest to open slope. Tons of bracken fern and sage, covering the flowers. Quite a lot of scarlet gilia. View of Three Sisters behind. Then it goes into the woods again. Met a few people hiking out. At the next and only trail junction, turn right for the summit. 
Narrow, but flat and long. Closer view of the Cascades. At one end of the top, you can see Crescent Lake below. We had the summit to ourselves for a good 15 minutes before a large group of bikers arrived. Had a lazy lunch, wait till everyone was gone, and then treaded back. Saw a snake. Tons of butterflies. Will have to come back here on a good beargrass year.Driving back is uneventful. A bit of traffic near Willsonville. I got dropped off at home. That's nice.
Early July is definitely a good time for flowers. Other hikes in the area that I'd like to check out are: Echo Basin (2 miles RT, need high clearance vehicle), maybe Browder Ridge - Heart Lake (11 miles RT), Coffin Mt (3 miles RT, for beargrass) and its neighbor Bachelor Mountain (3.8 miles RT).
