The main forest road is in excellent shape with very few potholes or bumps of any sort. Most of the spur road up to Knox Creek TH is also pretty decent, but then gets rough and there is one brief but really nasty section that is carved deep by the running water on the road. When dry, getting past this would be no issue for an AWD or better. But this morning this was really icy and I was worried that I would not have the traction to get through this without getting stuck somehow. I was fairly close to the TH, so it was not worth the risk. There was a small place to turn around and a slight pullout to park in here.
I walked the road until it started to curve around a switchback. Here I left the road to hike XC up through the forest above Knox Creek to cut the switchback to shave off some distance of road walking. The trail itself goes up some nice moderate switchbacks, getting snowier as you go on. Microspikes are good to have packed with you. The trail then more steeply works its way up along the head of the creek drainage before reaching the Kachess Ridge Trail. I turned right and hiked along the ridge and then along the left side until another junction, where I went left up some more steep short switchbacks to the lookout. Great view of the peaks from Hibox north past Chimney Rock to Mt. Daniel, out to the Stuart Range, and Rainier behind Kachess Lake.
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