Squak Mountain Access Trail, East Side Trail & Phil's Creek — Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025

Warm day, and more importantly no rain. Fog at home, but mostly blue skies during our hike. We parked on Sunrise Pl SW with 6 other cars - more than usual. Only minor erosion damage running down the center of the trail for the first 1000 feet. The rest of the trail was fine. Came across 7 runners and 3 hikers on the access section. The sun made it difficult to see heading south up the east side of the hill, even with sunglasses, but we embraced the radiant energy. Right before the Sycamore Access is a pretty big puddle about 4 inches deep. We watched a couple runners unsuccessfully trying to run on top of the water, and ultimately just laughing about it.

Headed onto East Side Trail and other than by the creek, where it was muddy and slick, the trail was good - not even puddles. The volume of water flow made for some calming backdrop, when the gunfire from the range wasn't going.

We got to the, now open Phil's Creek turnoff, and there was a single individual doing work. Back in June, this section was closed and there was a rudimentary path cut through the woods marked as 'Old Griz Access'. We said hi and thanks to the man and headed up Phil's, which is now a legitimate and well-defined trail again. Continuing along Phil's beyond Old Griz, there are two huge trees down, presumably from Nov 2024, but the walk-arounds are easy. Got to the beginning of East Side Trail and headed up with the intention of a side trip to SE Peak, but we got about 100 feet into it and decided to skip it. Instead, we took the short trip down to Sycamore and back up to add 0.6 miles to our trip. 

Came across another 9 people on the way down. I guess this was deemed by others as well, as a drama free hike.