DIRECTIONS: From Vancouver: Drive for about 145Km along Hwy #1. Take exit #168. Turn right after 200m to Silver Skagit Road. After driving for 4Km, the road turns to gravel road. Ignore the right turn to Silver Lake at 6.1Km. Just before 16.1Km, is the left turn to Eaton Lake. Drive for another 100m on a rough road. There are few parking spots available. You can also park on Silver Skagit Road just at the turn.create
SUMMARY: The trail head starts at altitude 420m. The first 80m of elevation is on a wide road. It turns then to a trail which climbs fairly steeply on the left side of Eaton Creek. The first bridge crosses the creek is at altitude 580m. The trail then goes away from the creek to be on gentler slopes. It comes back again to the creek at altitude 800m where the trail climbs fairly steeply on a spur which is surrounded between two creeks: Eaton Creek on the left and a smaller creek on the right. At altitude 1200m, the slope becomes gentle. The trail crosses again Eaton Creek at altitude 1290m. There was a bridge but it is broken and a heap of dead wood currently serves as a way to cross the creek. At the end of the former bridge is the fork to Mount Grant. There is no sign. From this point the route to the mountain goes slightly left and then up and to the right following the lesser gradient. The route goes steadily up except for a small ravine near the beginning that you have to cross. Mount Grant trail is not defined and the first part of it is a bush whacking. At first, only few yellow and pink ribbons might be seen along the route, but after a while ribbons become abundant.create
fullscreen
NOTICEBOARD
add_box
Mount Grant (from Eaton Lake Trailhead)
starstarstarstarstar
Oct 20, 2018
It was an overnighter at Eaton lake with plan to do both surrounding peaks (mount Grant and Eaton Peak) - one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Weather forecast was all sun and it have not failed.
I parked at the Eaton Creek camp - 100 m drive up from the Skagit road turn - suitable for any car and it supposed to provide safer parking.
Few cars were parked down along the Skagit road.
Started around 10 am and came to the lake right after noon. Trail is in great shape, with roaring creek on your left most of the time. Great waterfalls to admire on your rest stops. All bridges were present and safe to cross.
No one was at the lake, so I assumed cars were of day hikers.
Setup camp and decide to start with Grant - from the top it should provide a good view of where to go to Eaton Peak.
Crossed the lake outflow near on logs jam (around 1 pm) and followed the well marked trail up and up and up. Above the three line - probably half-way up - met the group of 5 hikers going down already. There is one small creek where you can fill in your bottle if needed. The upper gully is very steep - not a big problem going up, but going down without poles was not fun.
It was a blue sky day and views from the top were amazing in any direction.
Mindful of short daylight, I only spent 20 min on top and started to descent. As mentioned going down to the three line was not fun and took same if not more time than going up. Once in the forest, it's still steep but at least you can get hold of threes.
Came back around 5:30 pm - just in time to enjoy the sunset and prepare dinner before it got dark.
Was very glad I did not need to go down another 800+m (even on a good trail).