Snowshoed to the pass today and had lunch while watching the avalanches come off 3 fingers. Great time. 👍
*Dowm towards the bottom there is a WTA bag on the trail.

On the heels of the timely Dec 17 report from thenomadicartist, SoaringEagle, Kidz Won't Hike, and I set out for Higher Squire to take advantage of the excellent warm Dec weather and stunning views. What a great day! The conditions have changed a bit since the previous report - some of the lower snow has melted and the upper snow was crusty and soft. 

Trail starts at the Eight Mile Creek TH, but good luck finding it on Google Maps. You can find descriptions online how to get there. There is a sign at the right hand turn off past Clear Creek Campground south of Darrington on Mountain Loop Hwy. Final section is 6 miles down a rough single lane road. Plenty of potholes, some washouts, and jutting rocks. But not the worst road in North Cascades by any stretch. Best to have higher clearance as there are a few big dips. No facilities at TH. No one there all day, though a jeep showed up as we were leaving at 3pm. 

We followed the Eight Mile Creek Trail up to Three O'Clock Rock of rock climbing fame, about 30 mins and continued on. The trail is steep in sections and has some slippery roots and exposed rocks in places, but again, not the worst I've experienced this season. At about 3400' and just over 2 miles, cut left to start up the slopes to Higher Spire. There really isn't any trail. We had several GPX tracks, but the way wasn't obvious. So we just ended up finding a path of least resistance. The first part was the trickiest bushwhacking and was steep and slippery at times and required numerous veggie belays. Lots of running water here. Eventually it opens up some more and the snow gets more consistent at about 3800-3900'. We were starting to posthole more and swapped in snowshoes. That worked. We kept on snowshoes almost all the way to the summit, except the last short steep stretch. The snow was uneven, some places pretty firm, some you'd break through 6", and occasionally drop down to your hip due to buried trees or gaps in boulders. We had to be on guard the whole time. Conditions on summit fantastic and warm, no wind. We had a leisurely lunch and took in all the amazing surrounding views, especially Three Fingers! On the way down we kept our snowshoes on as long as possible, below where we had put them on going up. Once the snow ran out, we switched to microspikes which helped keep footing on the way down. Probably not strictly necessary. 

Stats: 6 miles, 3200' gain, 5:45 total time, 1:45 stopped time - probably includes lots of gears changes

Gear: Gaiters, poles, microspikes, snowshoes. Waterproof hiking boots. Brought crampons but didn't use them. 

GPX: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=2401632

Thanks to WTA trip reporter thenomadicartist's trip report from this past Sunday, Glen99, SoaringEagle, and myself decided to give this one a try. What a beautiful day, and the views were awesome!!

The Clear Creek road is pretty rough. High clearance is highly advisable. 

We got started at 8:45am. As others have stated, the trail is steep, and rooty. No snow on the trail until about 3400ft, and this is where we left the trail. The first 300 vertical feet or so was quite unpleasant, as the snow was less than a foot, and we had do deal with dense huckleberry bushes.

Once past here the snow progressively got deeper, so we put on snowshoes. Snow conditions were soft today, so lots of post holing, even with snowshoes. Great views along the way! The final bit up(75-100 vertical ft) to the summit steepens considerably. I snowshoed up the final steep part, and used trail crampons( micro spikes)on the way down 100ft from the summit, before this got less steep, and I put snowshoes back on.

We finished at 2:30 pm. 5.6 miles with 3316ft gain is what my GPS had. Great day!!

Dayhike to Squire Creek Pass and scramble of Higher Squire on Dec 17th 2023.

***Lost a Black Diamond ice axe on our descent from Higher Squire. Please get in touch if you find it! Thanks!***

ROAD: Clear of snow to TH. The road had some potholes and rougher, washed-out sections. We chatted briefly with a regular who mentioned the washouts were twice as bad as they were just a week or two ago. I'd recommend an SUV with a little clearance to make the trip much more pleasant vs trying to wrangle a Prius up there (although I'm sure someone would do it). There was a backcountry toilet at the TH.

SQUIRE CREEK PASS: The trail was snow-free to start. It was pretty steep, rough and rooty (those roots were slippery!) but clear of any other major obstacles. Patchy snow became more continuous around 3000'. We followed old post-holes for a while but eventually put on snowshoes to make life easier. The route mellowed out in grade, and we meandered our way up to Squire Creek Pass which had nice views of Three Fingers and Ulalach.

HIGHER SQUIRE: We opted to head up the NW ridge of Higher Squire, heading S and then SE from the pass. This involved some steep snowshoeing shenanigans and some fights through brush to gain the ridge. Once on the ridge, we shed the snowshoes, and headed up the ridge indulging in some bushwhacking, and even some scrambling moves on a boulder outcropping (that we probably could have bypassed) as we worked our way up. We kicked in some final snowy steps to the narrow summit, and enjoyed the stunning views to the north. 

After a bit of a break, we opted to drop off eastward from the summit. We put on crampons for the initial steep descent from the summit block, but the snow was good for kicking bucket steps. We eventually switched back to snowshoes as the grade lessened, and descended more or less down the NE rib to pick up our tracks at around 3700'. The descent route was much simpler than the way we went up, and I think most folks opt to ascend this way as well.

Once back to our tracks, it was a straightforward retracing of our steps back out to the trail and car. What a beautiful area of wilderness!

Water sources were fairly plentiful along the way, should you need them.

Follow along on Instagram for more adventures! @thenomadicartist

The conditions of this hike will likely be significantly different since the date of this hike, so be prepared for much more wintery conditions going forward!

The road to the trailhead was pretty decent with average potholes. Passable for any vehicle. Trail starts on a rocky old road bed up a couple long switchbacks and then has a nice stretch where the trail is well maintained and has seen recent trail work. But once the trail reaches the wilderness boundary, it then becomes much more rugged and rooty, with some steep sections but never too challenging. The old growth is very impressive along this trail, with one massive cedar tree that is particularly incredible! You will know it when you see it! The trail also passes a giant slabby cliff called 3 O'Clock Rock that seems like a fun climbing destination. There is just one giant blowdown which requires you to climb over it or crawl under it. At around the 3600 foot level is when snow started pretty suddenly and was constant the rest of the way to the pass, but at the time of this hike the trail was still easy to make out for most of the way to the pass. There were several stream crossings in the 1/2 mile or so before the pass, and all the streams were completely frozen solid which was quite a beautiful sight! Slipping on the ice of the streams would result in a pretty disastrous slide down the slope, but fortunately most the crossings were easy enough to step across on snow. There was one crossing where we did cross on the ice where we found a safer flat place to shuffle our feet across (or putting on microspikes would be helpful). From the pass, the view was so impressive of Three Fingers and the ridge to Whitehorse! We originally planned to scramble up Higher Squire, but I ultimately opted to save it for another time, satisfied with the scenery at the pass.