Arrived from Seattle at the trail head at about 10am on a Friday to lots of parking available. The last few miles of the road is unpaved rough dirt road with some car eating potholes. I drive a high clearance 4WD jeep and would not recommend this drive without a high clearance car. It might be possible with some creative driving to avoid the worst of the pot holes, but would likely be impossible to avoid scraping the underside of a low clearance car. There's a vault toilet at the trailhead and water along much of the first few miles of the trail.
This trail is very well maintained, with the first few miles of gentle incline through the beautiful forest. The incline over the course of the trail is steady, but there is almost no break! Once you start climbing you basically don't stop until you reach the pass. The last ~2 miles are exposed (and on the sun-side of the mountain in the morning) so make sure to bring sunscreen. There is easily accessible water at Camp Mystery but none at the pass. Once you get through Camp Mystery, you enter a meadow with incredible views of the mountains to your right and left and the pass in front of you.
We got to the pass at about 12:30 and we were the first (and only) ones there for about an hour and a half. An incredible spot for lunch. We passed a handful of backpacking groups on our way down, but it wasn't too busy on the Friday before Labor Day weekend even with the beautiful weather.
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