Hiked Squire Creek Pass and appreciated the nice trail work done in the first section. After that, a rough, steep trail. The trail is easy to follow until 3800 feet when snow patches cover the trail. Several sections are very muddy. It took under 3 hours up and 2 hours down. Poles were helpful.

What an incredible hike this was.  Typically I try to find hikes that are challenging and that are over 7 miles round trip.  I had seen this hike pop up from time to time and its sounded okay.  I read the last trip report and said that sounds like fun.  It turned out to be a decent workout after all.  The road has a few of the larger potholes, which are better then the small ones.  There are two dips where water crosses that need the most care.  There are some larger round rocks in the road in the traffic pattern.  Just take your time if you have a car and you will be fine.  A jetta made it so almost anything can. 

This hike is full of large rocks and roots galore.  Kind of like a mine Mailbox Peak to some degree.  Did I mention there are roots??  Plenty or them.  There are some really cool rock formations for climbing as well as the streams running over live rock formations that you might not see elsewhere.  The hike is a little bit of a work out despite its short length of 6 miles RT. After about 1.6 miles you lose the trail and go onto snowfields. There is no trail to find again. We did use All Trails to help guide us to the pass.  I actually just went straight up and kept to the right of the peak straight ahead and we slowly traversed to the right towards the pass.  There are tree holes, trees ready to spring up on you as well as some water obstructions that are covered.  Just go slow and pay attention and you will reach the pass. Excellent 360 views at the tops or peaks you dont get to see like this,  The different peaks is worth the trip as we are all used to Pilchuck and Dickerman  views. We just used poles and boots.  My feet actually were dry until going down as I didnt put on gaters but otherwise any water crossing, mud holes or water crossings were simple and easy if you just take your time and watch your step.

We left the parking lot around 10:45.  Made the pass at 1:05 headed down around 1:30 and were back to the lot at 3:20.  I think this was an awesome hike and this is a great time of the year for this hike.  There was a small window of mosquitoes after the larger water crossing but I didnt use bug spray and did fine.  I did skip the sun block as I usually do pretty well but do be careful on the snow.  The hike today would get 4.5 stars out of 5 with the snow.  I might drop it a half a star when the snow is gone.  Great hike that is away from others and its a path less traveled.  I look forward to the one way option as well.

Took a friend up to Squire Creek Pass via Eightmile Creek on Saturday.  Beautiful day with moderate temps.  Ran into snow at 1.5 miles, and thanked the people who wrote my GPS app.  It worked like a charm and helped us stay on route, since the trail is buried.  The snow is hollow in places (creeks, tree wells), so use caution.  I punch through a few times, all the way up to the thigh at one point.  Otherwise the snow is soft, and steps are easy to kick.

Plenty of mud on the trail, but thankfully only in limited spots.  Bugs were not an issue really, especially once on the snow.

Wear gaiters and water proof boots.  Sun screen .... wear it!  Even with light overcast, it's easy to get a burn on the snow.  I forgot to do my legs between my shorts and my gaiters, and the back side of knees got pretty crispy!

If you take any rock climbers with you, be prepared to have to drag them away from Three O'clock Rock (1 mile in).  A slab climbers dream!

Ran into WTA volunteers working the trail in the morning.  Go Team! 

The weather was a bit warmer than we expected for this time of year, so we took it a bit slow going up.  Recommend taking plenty of water or a filter kit.  We hit a couple of muddy spots and quickly learned to use our poles to probe a bit before stepping into ankle deep mud.  There were some bugs, but not bothersome.  The two water crossings we encountered were easily crossed.  

There were a couple of spots where the trail was not immediately obvious, but we managed to keep heading in the right direction until we starting hitting snow patches.  Upon encountering a large-ish snow field about halfway up, we turned back, as we couldn't identify where the trail was on the other side.

This hike reminds me somewhat of Heliotrope Ridge trail, though the views on Heliotrope Ridge are much grander in scale, IMO. We'll likely return here in late Autumn when it's cooler and snow free to see what we missed at the end.

A wonderful, rugged trail that leads to a wide expanse of snow fields and views of Three Fingers.  The gravel road in has lots of potholes but I was fine in my 2WD car on a dry day, just went slow.

The trail is indeed quite rugged and requires a good sense of awareness and route finding.  The later half of the trail up (and surrounding slopes) are blanketed in snow so the remainder of the hike becomes a scramble to the summit.  Still fun and exhilarating but helpful to have a good map, compass, and/or GPS.  Once you hit the snow, there are no indications as to trail location/direction.

Snowshoes are needed for later half of hike to reach the saddle (or micro spikes & gaters at a minimum).  Also sunglasses and sunscreen for the exposed snow fields (lovely expanses of white on relatively shallow slope).

Hike down from the saddle / summit requires similar route finding / scramble back to where the "trail" is discernible.

Although only 5.5 miles RT, hike took me about 4.5 hours with lunch at the top.  Definitely worth a repeat in any season, but given the scrambling needs for Spring hike, I'd only try this hike on fair weather day.

Enjoy and be safe!