I never hear much about this trail but have been staring at it in the pages of 103 hikes, 5th edition, for years.
With 1440 elevation gain, it was a workout. It stats off along the Skagit river trail which I personally find boring. Then it is up, up, up, a long uneventful trail to the saddle.
The saddle and last 300m or so are pretty nice. Meadows, wildflowers, and views all around of hatchethead and other notable peaks and ridges.
I would suggest taking a GPS for this top part, the flagging is sparse but a good topo will help you get to the peak but it is pretty wide open so mistakes could be made on the way down.
While we were up there, some idiot on an adjacent peak lit a fire (for bugs I presume). this was a very dry weekend when all fire bans were in effect. We saw water bombers in the areas and smoke, so noone can convince me this guy should not have been fined heavily (hopefully my pics turn out!).
Now, here is the key part to note, We want to do a thru-and-thru and not hike down the same way to save time (we had left a car at Cayoose Flats). The logging roads on my GPS seemed good to start but then some turned into horrible bushwacking and made it a very long day and some unhappy participants. If you want to do this one, bite the bullet and also finish at Sumallo grove (the full 18km), it also will make your logistics easier and gives you a nice river to soak your feet in at the end.
I'm not sure I'd recommend this hike, too much effort for a medium payoff.
Notes:
-buggy
-no snow