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Here is the profile of Stage 2 of 2. We would tackle this stage Saturday afternoon, after dropping most of our gear and water at the top of Villager around midday. Luckily our packs would be much lighter for this stage, but we would still suffer the additional 7 miles and 3000 ft gain/loss after already climbing 5600 ft up with our full packs. This was one of the top five most difficult hikes I have ever attempted. In terms of pure gain with carrying loaded packs, this was the toughest. I say only top five because there are other factors that make a hike difficult - such as total elevation (it's a lot more difficult to climb 1000 ft at a base altitude of 10,000 ft, versus the desert - which is at sea level). Other factors include my condition/health, the remoteness of the area, the condition of the trail, availability of water, temperatures, etc. Example of other top five tough hikes: 1) hiking Granite mountain when I was sick (I felt like I was going to vomit the first half of the day - but I had committed to leading a group hike that day), 2) Mt Whitney (super cold/windy, no sleep, and very high elevation), 3) Mt Agassi (high elevation, ran out of water, by myself, no sleep), 4) Jacumba Mtn (raining, I kept slipping on the rocks, starting to get hyperthermia), 5) Fossil Canyon (having to rope my backpack up and down dry waterfalls is a never-ending slot canyon - also ran out of water). You get the idea. This was going to be challenge hike - we call these "survivor" trips. So fun! I get excited even now just thinking about it (I'm looking over my my hiking gear even as I type this, wondering about the next trip!).