On Wednesday, May 21st, my friends and I successfully attempted to hike Hidden Lake and stay overnight in the famous fire lookout. Waking up at the brisk hour of 6:00 am Wednesday morning and driving two and a half hours from Bellevue to the trailhead, we began our trek at around 10:30. Getting to the trailhead was fairly easy even in my 2005 Lexus 330, although we admittedly had to take it very slow to safely make it over the potholes along the unmaintained forest road. Driving up this forest road took us about 20 minutes, and we were greeted by an empty parking lot (to no one’s surprise at this time of year).
With high hopes, full water bottles, and dry clothes, we began our adventure equipped with micro spikes, snowshoes, and the necessary overnight gear we would need to make it through the cold night ahead. The first mile or so through the forest was fairly straightforward and we were able to conquer it without much trouble. After about a mile, we encountered our first bit of snow and began trailblazing straight up the mountain without the need for snowshoes just yet choosing to stray away from the switchbacks of the summer route. Foolishly thinking we could take a shortcut up an avalanche chute around 1.5 miles in, we donned snowshoes and spent an unsuccessful hour or so trying to summit a very steep chute. Defeated after our unsuccessful attempt, we backtracked down the chute a bit and broke for lunch at around 1:30 in the afternoon. Refueled and reinspired by the surprisingly sunny weather, we re-embarked on our journey after lunch and opted to follow the usual summer route (albeit covered in deep snow this time of year). We made quick progress enjoying good company and spectacular views and arrived at the saddle around 5:30 in the evening. With sunset in just over 3 hours, we took a much-needed break and continued on into the infamous bowl beneath the lookout. Scattered with hefty avalanche debris, we hesitantly took it slow crossing in pairs across the bowl with admittedly much difficulty due to slushy and slippery snow. After making it across, we continued up the normal winter route for this section of the hike and finally made it to the lookout at 7:30 with just enough time to get settled and enjoy an unrivaled sunset. As I am sure you all know, the sunset views were magnificent and were something my friends (who were visiting from Los Angeles and Chicago) had never seen before. We made our freeze-dried dinners with our little Jetboil and enjoyed a well-deserved sunset. As the sun began to fully set and the temperature dropped, we attempted to dry our completely soaked socks and equally soaked boots for the next day and bundled up in our sleeping bags to endure an extremely frigid night.
The next morning, we woke up at an early 5:00 am in hopes of a sunrise but were instead greeted with the cold reality of clouds and ice. To all of our protests, we reluctantly got out of bed and began packing everything up, putting on our still wet boots/socks, and tidying up the lookout before heading out at around 7:00. We then finally began our descent with hopes of an easier journey than our previous one hiking up. Unfortunately, the ice near the top and slush in the bowl made the first part of this descent very difficult and it took us nearly an hour and a half to make it back to the saddle. From there on, however, it was smooth sailing with early morning snow conditions that made it pleasantly easy to traverse with our snowshoes. Everything seemed to be going well. It wasn’t until we began glissading down the mountain here and there that tragedy struck, and I foolishly and unknowingly lost my phone coming down. This mistake cost us another hour of me backtracking to search for my phone to no avail (so if anyone happens to hike this soon and finds my phone please let me know!). However, once we decided to move on, we continued down without many obstacles, glissading down some of the steeper parts, and finally getting back to our warm car around 12:30.
With burnt faces, wet feet, tired souls, and a combined 15 hours of hiking over the past two days, we were definitely ready to go home. I would not recommend doing this hike in May, but if you do and if you are prepared for it, you will be greeted by untouched rolling alpine meadows, breathtaking views of the completely snowcapped cascades, and unrivaled sunsets in one of the most spectacular fire lookouts in Washington.
If anyone is interested in doing this hike in May or even June and wants some more information on our trip (or finds my phone), please feel free to reach out to me at my email, owenpeastman@gmail.com!
Happy hiking!
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