I arrived at the parking lot at 9:15. I would have been there sooner but Road 116 is UNMARKED. It is 8.6 miles from the roundabout at the Shell Station outside of Roslyn. I drove way past it and had to turn around. If the lot is full there is additional parking across the road about 1000 feet towards Roslyn.

The snow is hard packed and crunchy. I wore micro spikes until about 1/4 mile on Hex Mountain trail 1343. After that I wore snow shoes the rest of the way up and down (mainly because I was too lazy to take them off when I got back on Road 116). You could walk the entire distance without either microspikes or snow shoes, but then you would most likely post hole!

When I got to the top it was really windy, so I put on my wind breaker over my down jacket. Still too cold to sit and eat lunch so I walked about half way down trail 1343 and found a log to sit on to eat lunch.

I may not have gone the entire distance. There were two cars in the lot when I arrived. I never saw the occupants of these cars until I returned to the parking lot. The two hikers suggested I hadn't made it all the way, but I'm pretty sure I was close. I never saw them until they returned to the parking lot.

I never saw anyone on the trail until I was at the top and turned around (about 11:15). Then for the next hour I saw about 30 people going up (one was a group from a Tacoma meetup).

There was enough sun to require sunglasses. I left my poles in my car, and really didn't need them although they would have been helpful on the way down trail 1343. All in all it was a good hike; I'm not sure why I have never hiked it before.

That's probably Mount Hinman (the snow-covered peak in the background) in the distance.

Found trailhead easily with the help of previous trip report's coordinates (47.291552, -121.097893) -- the ones supplied by WTA don't take you far enough up the road. We needed snowshoes from the moment we stepped on the trail. Got a little turned around at one 3-way intersection (47.2944417,-121.0924306) where we should have gone straight and instead hung a left. We were able to follow tracks until we reached the Hex Mountain trailhead sign; they petered out shortly thereafter. We made it about 3/4 of the way towards the summit but turned around due to time considerations.

Did this as a snowshoe in January, came back to try it as a hike two weeks ago. Both are challenging but great!

We parked on the west side of Salmon La Sac Road across from the fire station (47.289691, -121.095143) and walked north along the highway over Newport Creek to the trailhead (47.291631, -121.097889). I've had success using the Gaia GPS iOS app to track the route (screenshot attached).

The first half of the hike is on a wide dirt road that winds its way up the mountain until you get to the actual sign for the trail (47.30620, -121.08153). After that it's basically just following the narrow trail along the ridge line up to the summit.

Toward the top there are several fallen trees blocking the trail, but it was pretty easy to go over/around them. There were a couple of small snow patches remaining, but they've probably melted fully by now. The last 100 feet to the summit is loose gravel on a pretty steep slope, so... be careful?

Beautiful view of nearby peaks, the lake, and Rainier in the distance from the top on a clear day. There were few flies and ants at the summit, but they didn't give us much trouble. Only saw one other hiker on his way down right when we started. Really peaceful place--let's keep it that way.

Roundtrip distance: 7.3 miles
Elevation gain: 2500'
Moving time: 3h 24m
Total time: 4h 7m