Rode here today with my 11 year old.  The views are fantastic for much of the ride.  Perfect for taking your time with a trail snack.  Our route was to climb the road to the next gate and then head onto the trail.  We rode the trail up to the intersection, took a left and rode it out the next road crossing.  (there are rocks on the road - it is clear.) Turned around and then went left when back at the first intersection.  Getting to the lake is a lot more effort and the trail up to it is a fairly technical climb on the short chunk of singletrack.

This is a big ride for the 5th grader but not superhuman.  Trails are in great shape although some of the fun parts are eroding and getting rocky.  It's definitely a medium technical skill level in areas and I would call the fitness requirements medium.  We took 2h 45m to ride what turned out to be 10.5 miles.;