Today was my second attemp to get to Hidden lake lookout, failed again, and again in snow ( I need to hike it in snow free season.
Road as always - bumpy, but passable. Started from TH at 11:20, there are were two cars before me. Forest part is pretty easy, less amount of snow. Fun starting at basin area. Once I reached it I realised how it is different from what I seen in April when I tried it first time, today I seen many trees, bushes. In april everything was under avalache. I followed by someone else track, that helps a lot, then I reached those guys, they were on skies going up for overnight. They said they met one guy, who turned back, because he could not find trail after basin area. Soon I reached the point where that guy turned back and I decided to try hit the trail. This is actually was my first expirience when I am the first one on 2 feet snow trail. All snow hikes I did before I followed by some one else track. The bad thing that I didn't see this trail before, in April it was just solid snow field and you just need to take direction, not the actual trail. Despite lot of snow, it still puffy, boulders still there and you need to go very carefuly, that's why I went very slow trying to figure out right where the trail is. I used alltrail app, checked gps every minute to check my position, I spent more time than expected and reached lake view point at 3:10. In addition I want to say that all my way up snow was just crazy, and visibility was awful. Then I realised that I need at least hour to get to the lookout, but I even wasn't able to see it. I also counted time I need to get back and decided to turn back. On my way back I met six people going to lookout for overnight.
Hope to get to the lookout next time :)
PS. Hiking poles, gaiters, navigation is a must, crampons/spikes/snowshoe might be helpful as well.
I lost kershaw knife, probably forgot it on one of the boulder close to lake view point, please ping me if you found it.
More photos here https://photos.app.goo.gl/HyCtRsMxNLM4QK7w2
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