Hidden Lake Lookout — Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025

Overnight in Hidden Lake Lookout from 12.2-3 2025

ROAD: Some rough, rutted and rocky areas. Would not recommend trying to take a sedan up here. We did fine in a Subaru Forester.

We were able to drive to the summer trailhead, but there was 2-3" of fresh snow on the last stretch of road and we were sliding around a bit especially on the final two hairpin turns. We decided to just drive back down to the start of the winter route where there was no snow, just to avoid any chances of the road getting icier overnight.

WINTER ROUTE: We headed straight up the good old steep, character-building winter route. We were able to follow a bootpath for a while, which eventually petered out into light snow coverage. We just headed up through the woods, which were fairly open, with some areas of light brush to whack through.

Snow eventually got deeper and we put on snowshoes shortly after getting to treeline. We could have put them on earlier, around 5,600' just after a talus field - we took them off on the way down at this point.

From treeline, it was trail-breaking in unconsolidated snow. We plodded up to the saddle and scoped our options for the final push. Two of our party took the steep, direct route following the summer trail. Crampons and ice axe were recommended for this route, and it does cross avalanche terrain.

We actually had a small pinpoint release come down over the path, but thankfully snow coverage was still quite shallow and the slide was very small. Still a nudge from Mother Nature to remind us that we really need to pay attention and respect conditions though! The steepest crux at the end was tricky as the snow wasn't quite deep enough over the buried rocks and they had some trouble getting purchase with sharps.

The other two of us ended up dropping down into the basin and traversing across the long way to gain the ridge, which was a lot less sketchy, but a lot longer. I'd honestly just recommend going this way if snow conditions are at all unstable, although there can also be overhead hazard from cornices on the ridge going this way. Cornices were pretty negligible right now.

We were the only group at the lookout, and we enjoyed absolutely stunning inversion conditions for both sunset and sunrise. It was seriously magical, unreal and so beautiful watching the sun blaze a crazy glow of pink, gold and orange over the North Cascades and an ocean of billowing clouds.

The lookout was of course cozy as ever and we had a great time and a calm, quiet night. The way down went a lot quicker, although hazards like tree wells and post-holing and slippery trippy roots did take out a couple of our party a few times.

This was my second time staying up there this year - it's definitely an amazing spot and I'm glad we were able to sneak this one in. A ton of new precipitation is coming in over the next week, so I'm guessing no one will be able to get up there for a while now!

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This trip was so amazing, I'll be posting photos from it for a while! Follow along on Instagram for more pics @thenomadicartist

More Information on this Trip Report

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