Overall a great overnight!! We entered on Friday and came out Saturday. Since this trailhead is within the NP boundary, our trip started out with a ~1 hour wait getting into the park. We arrived at 11:30am. The entrance at White River can be metered, which means in the summer often starting around 9:00am one car enters for every car that leaves. Definitely factor this into your plans.
After making it into park and stopping at Sunrise for lunch, we hit the trail around 2:30. The trail is in great condition, and we had it mostly to ourselves. While we didn't see any, the two other parties we passed had seen black bears and possibly cubs. Wildflowers up here are truly amazing right now. Tons of seeded anemone, pink paintbrush, lupine, tigerlily etc. It took us about an hour and half with minimal stops to reach Upper Palisades. The lake seemed abnormally low but still pretty; we got water from the stream that separates Camp 1 and Camp 2. Always important to practice safe food storage in the backcountry, especially when there's known bear activity, and the Upper Palisades camps made that easy with a great bear pole and ample spots to cook away from camp. The next morning we hiked Brown Peak and took a dip in Hidden Lake. Views from Brown are pretty good, and water at Hidden Lake was cold but oh so beautiful!!! We saw lots more people as we headed out which makes sense for a Saturday, but I wouldn't call it crowded.
I think people are more drawn to the trails with views of Tahoma, and since this one doesn't have any it certainly draws less visitors. Highly recommend this as a day hike or short overnight though! With the trailhead being right off Sunrise road, the accessible alpine terrain, and very nice grade I'm amazed this isn't a more popular spot.
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