We hiked this route in reverse of the way described here. You can go either way, but to us it's easier this way since you climb back up over a longer route on the Mt Lemmon Trail instead of up the very steep Lemmon Rock Trail. We stopped by the Lemmon Rock Fire Lookout to say hi to Ranger Dave and his dog Gus before heading down the Lemmon Rock Trail which we found to be in very poor condition. There were numerous downed trees across the trail that required climbing over or going around on rough bypasses. Only a few were high enough to go under. One of our hikers wound up with two tears in her hiking shorts and plenty of soot. There was water in the crossings and nice shade along parts of the trail. Although it was 68 degrees when we started, it rapidly got quite warm in the sun. I took an umbrella and tried hiking with one for the first time. It worked great, and I felt a lot cooler in the sun that I did without it. So overall it was a nice day, but still hot in the sun. We hadn't hiked in a few weeks, and this trail kicked our tails. As an aside, my GPS showed the route at 9.3 instead of the 8.6 miles--not sure why. See my photoset of this lovely area.