Lookout Mountain Lookout — Thursday, May. 23, 2024

Mostly just posting for other folks who are debating whether the lookout is currently reachable early season. Short answer is— yes, but it requires some stubbornness, and you should be prepared for a lot of snow. Snow was significant by 4200 with no visible trail, and getting pretty deep by 4600. Strongly suggest taking the ridge line to avoid the long open south facing avalanche slope (though when we came back down the next day, the rain had melted almost all of the snow on that face), but there were some unavoidable short stretches of being on sketchy-feeling steep slopes (which were on trail, was navigating with a gps track) for the last 1000 feet of elevation gain. Depending on your comfort level and familiarity with avalanche risk, might want to wait a few weeks for things to melt off. For context, I’ve done this hike a bunch of times and I think it usually takes me about 3-3.5 hours to get up in good conditions, and with the snow this time— it took 7.

We were socked in the whole time with zero views, but it was delightful nonetheless and I always love sleeping in that lookout!