We started off from the Paradise lodge and headed out on the waterfall trail, which linked up with the Deadhorse Creek Trail. Many of the trails at Paradise link and cross, but the junctions are all signed, so you have an idea of where you are and where you are headed. Continue up the trail to Glacier Vista - if you're lucky you might see and hear a small avalanche on the glacier. At this point the trails all link up as the Skyline trail. We wanted to get up to Panorama Point. It is not an easy hike, but since we were with my 75 year old father-in-law, we just rested often, and that made it much more doable. Panorama Point is about halfway along the trail, so we decided to keep going rather than retrace our steps. The pit toilet at Panorama Point is only open during the summer, but it was surprisingly clean and non-smelly.
There is a bit more upwards hiking continuing on past that point, but nothing too rugged. Once you get around the point, the scenery changes rather dramatically.Rather than the fields of wildflowers you came from, it's all loose rock, scree and snow (even in August!). We didn't follow the Skylin all the way - we came back down on the Golden Gate Trail - definitely hike this route clockwise - the descent made us glad we were not climbing up it.
Definitely bring at least 2 bottles of water with you and start before noon. Even with all of our stops, we hiked about 6 miles (with about 3200' of elevation gain) in 4.5 hours.
On the East side of the trail with the wildflower meadows, you are likely to see marmots sunning on the rocks and lots of ground squirrels. We were hoping to see a pika, but they are shy and there were a lot of people on the trail that day.
Stop by the Paradise Inn afterwards and celebrate with a soft-serve ice cream cone.

OK, First of all, let's be clear about this; this review does NOT IN ANY WAY reflect the wonderful staff, maintenance or general facilities at the mountain! Nor does it reflect the absolutely stunning majestic beauty of the surroundings. If this review were just based on these factors, the review would be a solid five.
No, this this review only criticizes many of the fellow "hikers." And this needs to be addressed. There are a lot of people on these these trails.
Many of them were wandering off the trails. Some trying to catch chipmunks or pet the marmots (!!!). Some were picking the flowers. And some were having snowball fights. Listen, there are signs posted everywhere to stay on the trails and off of the fragile environment. These people obviously did not care enough.
Next was the hiking. While the upper level trails are sometimes quite narrow and precarious in spots, We both witnessed many fellow travellers physically pushing other people out the way, fail to yield a safe right-a-way or verbally condescend fellow hikers who were either a bit older or were traversing at a slower gait.
Quite often during out experience on the trail, when two "groups" met each other on at a narrow spot (from opposite directions) and stopped to allow safe passage, another group would plow on through, oft-time pushing the groups they were cutting in on instead of waiting their turn.
I witnessed a young family quickly approaching an elderly couple (who were making good time, BTW) on the trail. The mother was sternly instructing her young daughter (about 7 years old) to repeatedly tap (mother said "hit) the elderly woman's leg and say, "out of the way old woman!"
Other people would simply command the whole trail, not stepping to one side or another - even when there was room to do so, and force others off the trail. No courtesy of making room for fellow hikers! One person actually fell onto the shale because she was literally pushed off the path!
Hiking a trail, such as this, is not about forcing your way through. There is no automatic right-of-way for aggressive, selfish behavior. Hiking is not comparable to running a race or commuting in the big city.
What can be done? i don't know. More staffing won't help, because the area is just too vast in order to effectively patrol. It would be nice if people...tourists... would stop for a moment and just be considerate of others and their surroundings!
We enjoyed the mountain, the staff and the facilities... but the rude..and dangerously selfish... behavior exhibited by many other fellow hikers is enough to make us not want to come back!
...and we are hiking hobbyists!