Hi all, I just wanted to thank everyone for the help figuring things out. A brief trip report:

We changed plans and drove out saturday morning and planned to spend the night after relaxing.
We parked at the trailhead. There were 5 other cars, most just arriving around 7am. We headed down the trail and initially took a difficult trail along the ridge because we missed the trail on the very top of the ridge. I would definitely recommend using Wizard’s directions, and I managed to record all but about 30 feet of the top of the ridge easy trail on the way out – it’s uploaded to the map I linked before.

The descent was manageable but difficult in some places – I shuddered looking at the steep route! The ground is sandy and slick – the gravel is slippery when on those rocks! We got to the springs around 930. A lot of the campers were just waking up down there and there was some noticeable garbage but not as bad as I expected. We initially set our stuff far upstream away from the crowds, but then decided to explore a bit and move it. We wound up accidentally finding the contemplation pool and stayed there for several hours, with people occasionally joining for periods of time. Fun, social atmosphere.

A bit before 4, we packed up and headed out – we wanted sufficient daylight to set up our tent and cook dinner. Plus, it got pretty loud back there on Saturday. Once back to the car, we loaded up with camping equipment and hiked out onto the burnt flats west of the trailhead. This area was relatively flat, but pretty rocky, so be aware of that. After setup and dinner, we passed out before the sun went down – that 1000 feet is no joke!

Overall, successful trip. We plan on returning and finding more campsites in the future. I marked a few we spotted on my map I linked here. Hope it’s helpful to some!

The map: https://drive.google.com/open?id=16QnSWZxYkE49NQBwzO2g8ntgWFY&usp=sharing