@IdEaMaNi - The trail from the Portal was fine - the only point where we had a decision to make was about half a mile (totally guessing here) above Mirror Lake. The main trail heads towards a slope and then turns sharply right to a couple of switchbacks before traversing the slope.
Last year we missed this switchback and ended up doing some hard work up and over a couple of hills so we wanted to avoid that this year. However, there was a trail that continued up a snow ramp to our left, following the path of Lone Pine Creek and in retrospect this would have been easier.
