Hidden little hike just outside of Issaquah. I started from Sunrise Pl and did a loop around the mountain. The trail's in good shape and there weren't many people out on Christmas Eve, so it was a nice quiet walk. There isn't much in the way of viewpoints though.

I'm not sure the right trail to tag on WTA; on Alltrails it's called Squak Mountain East Ridge, and it said 7.6 mi, 2,480 ft of elevation gain.

Returned with dread to Squak Mountain to find more of the vegetation mowed down. Somebody is using a gasoline powered tool to mow down vegetation alongside trails, taking out everything within half a meter on each side of the trail. They’re destroying native plants, such as sword ferns, bleeding harts, salal, and others. Last week West Access Trail was all mowed down, today I found Mountainside drive and part Bullit Fireplace mowed down.
I just spoke to somebody from Washington Conservation Corps who were contracted to do this work. It was rather frustrating - the person said they do this “brushing” every 3-5 years to increase access (not true, this happened last August in the same places). I didn’t get a clear answer to how mowing down native plants alongside trails that are not overgrown at all increases access. Instead I was sent to speak to Washington State Parks.

I am including some before and after. They’re not from the EXACT same spot, but the nearest trail that hasn’t been impacted.

Whoever is doing “trail maintenance” on this trail is mowing all the vegetation alongside the trail down, including native plants such as bleeding hearts, Oregon grapes, salal, Salomon seal and a ton ferns, including the sword fern and others. They are whacking down all the plants 1 meter from each side of the trail, leaving behind piles of dead leaves. I saw this today on the West Access Trail, but I expect none of the trails on the mountain will be spared. My understanding is that this is a hiking trail, not a horse trail so such a wide corridor is not necessary. The beautiful flowers and ferns lining up the trail are gone and will not come back till next spring so we have the next 11 months to enjoy brown piles. Ironically there is a poster and brochures at the trailhead about the principles of Leave No Trace. I’ve tried to contact the agency responsible for this, but unsuccessfully so far.

If you are looking for some solitude, then head over to Point Solitude which is down the road a bit from Squak Mountain-Central Peak. There is an abandoned road that heads toward this point, and then it is an easy off trail walk to a treed high point with not much of any views. I wandered over to the south end of this point to possibly get some sort of a view, but could only a part of South Tiger, as the clouds were rolling in. It appeared that there was an old trail in places, but it probably was just my imagination. This so called Point Solitude is all open forest, and is kind neat, and could be a spot for the Phil's connector trail to hook up with the Summit trail, instead of walking up the road.

I started from the Squak Mountain connector trail from Sunrise Place SW. This is a nice trail that takes you over to the East Ridge trail above the Sycamore access trail. This trail is well maintained. I actually talked to a gentleman who was doing some maintenance on this part of the trail. He said he was involved with building this trail many years ago. Very cool, and I thanked him for his efforts.

East Ridge trail, and Summit trail were all in great shape. East Ridge trail is a great trail as it switchbacks thru open forest with lots of salal covered forest floor. Nothing to steep. It never seems to be busy on this trail on the eastside of Squak, just a few hikers and an occasional trail runner. A nice alternative to some of the other busy trails in the area.

My route was 7.4 miles with 2303 ft gain, which included a trip up to the radio towers on the Central Peak.

Today was a conditioning day, plain and simple. Oh, and throw in a couple of Peakbagger.com points on the map that I haven’t been to before. I don’t like red dots on my map, I need to turn them all green🤣

I was very impressed with the weather being dry, the trails were all in excellent condition, fewer than a dozen other hikers, and only one other car at the trailhead! 

Though I saw no spring flowers there is a lot of fresh greenery poking its heads up through the black matted leaves. 

Best of all my feet and shoulders got some pack carrying conditioning in. See you on the trail🙃