Squire Creek Pass via Eight-mile Trail — Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

First off, this is an incredible trail! Although the trail is not maintained the footpath is clear with no navigation skills needed. Do be prepared to get muddy as the trail is extremely wet from start to finish. There is quite a bit of high stepping over fallen trees, rocks and roots but none that aren't passable. Because of this, the trail is not a good place for older dogs. Smaller and/or agile dogs are best for this trail as I had to help my dog up, down and around obstacles on several occasions. There's a really great pool of water at the base of the slab of rock where dogs can swim. No need to carry lots of water as there are plenty of streams with the first section of the hike being literally a stream. Don't fret. You can walk alongside the stream but would recommend waterproof boots as mud would easily enter in low cut shoes. It's likely that you'll misstep and land in the slop at least once. The trail is quite steep and took us an average of 55 minutes per mile which is quite slow for us. This also included stopping and taking multiple photos while wearing my 43 lb training pack. Quad burning hike to say the least. We were able to knock out the last 0.75 miles to the pass in 20 minutes as it leveled out and we were running out of daylight. My Strava says that we were moving for a total of 2:40 over the course of 5.6 miles with 2397 feet of elevation gain. Highly recommend this hike as the views at the top were spectacular and you'll likely be alone on the trail. Was such a nice treat to hear birds chirping because the forest was so quiet. As for the road conditions, it's definitely a rough road that is not suitable for low clearance vehicles. A crossover vehicle with a bit of clearance would likely do fine. There are numerous pot holes and dips in the road making it a bumpy ride. There are also very few places where one can pull over letting an oncoming car pass. Be prepared to either pull into the shrubbery or backup for quite a distance. There is room for 3-4 cars to park at the trailhead with no bathrooms. Do explore this unmaintained gem. You'll be happy you did!