ROAD: the dirt road for parking is unmarked, but the WTA and ALLTRAILS directions get you to the correct dirt road and there’s parking for about 10 cars on the dirt road before the gate

TRAIL: We followed the dirt/gravel road for about 1.5 miles beyond the gate.  The road is a steady up with no signs saying which road to stay on.  We followed the ALLTRAILS map.  

There is a large sign where you’ll leave the road and begin the Hex Mountain trail. If you thought the road was steep, the trail is even steeper.  Some areas are loose gravel and slipping is easy (like walking on marbles).  Poles helped. Only a couple trees to climb over and a few small patches of snow to cross. 

The views are grand most of the way to the top – looking down at the lake and across to the snow-covered peaks.  At the top you can see Mt. Stuart and the Enchantment peaks.  We first went to the east peak and then looked back and determined the west peak is the actual, taller Hex Mountain Peak (but it was fun walking the ridge between the two peaks).

It was quite windy at the top, but no bugs. The breeze also made it quite cool, but we found a sheltered, warmer area on the ridge between the peaks to enjoy our lunch. 

This is a fun and interesting hike. Many varieties of flowers were blooming and we spotted a bluebird and woodpecker.  We met a couple motorcycles.  Though the trail was not crowded, we passed a fair number of groups along the way.

Arrived early just before 8am to beat the rush on a Saturday. I was the first car there. There is no signage or indication that it leads to the Hex Mountain hike, it's just an unmarked dirt road off the main Salmon La Sac road.

Starting at the locked gate, the hike up to Hex Mountain starts with 1.5 miles of forest roads. Thank you to whoever arranged the sticks into arrows to show which of the forest roads to take - there's a whole bunch of them and they are not all on the maps I had on my phone.

No snow until almost the top of the mountain where there are a handful of patches to cross. No need for spikes if you're just going to Hex.

Nice views at the top in all directions. It was clear until about noon then clouds moved in. I had the top to myself for about 20 minutes until a whole stream of people starting arriving.

I then tried to make it along the ridge trail to Sasse Mountain. The trail is very faint in places so I lost it a few times. Luckily it's a ridge trail so it was easy enough to pick up again later. This trail has a lot more snow patches especially as you head up towards Sasse, and microspikes were helpful. There are a number of high points along the ridge with great views. I made it to the one just before Sasse Mountain and there were great unobstructed views in most directions - Ranier / Cle Elum Lake / Mount Stuart, etc. I think the views from here were a little better than Hex Mountain due to a little additional elevation. The Sasse Mountain peak looked like it was treed and with more snow, so I didn't bother going all the way there. Given how busy the Hex Mountain trail was later in the day, amazingly I didn't see a single person along the Sasse Mountain trail.

So, for Hex Mountain and most of the Sasse Mountain trail it was 12.6 miles and 4200 feet total.

With the return of cloudy weather to the west side today I decided to head east to hike in a bit more sun which turned out pretty well.  I decided to hike up Hex Mountain as I had only done this hike in the middle of winter as a snowshoe trip.  I thought it would be interesting to see it with less snow from how I remembered it and little did I know that there would be almost no snow.  It is practically snow free already...even at Hex's 5,000 ft summit.  

I ascended up the standard route (trail #1343) which starts at 3,500 ft elevation after about 1.5 miles of walking on an old service road from the trailhead at 2,300 ft.  I then enjoyed the panoramic views of Mt Stuart, the Stuart range and Cle Elum Lake at the summit for about 45 minutes and then decided to make a loop out of the hike which seemed quite possible from studying the map.  I descended the trail on the east face of Hex which is called the Sasse Mountain Trail.  I followed it until about 3,700 ft where I got on an unnamed trail which looked as if it had heavy dirt bike use as it was pretty churned up.  I followed this to 3,000 ft where GAIA showed a connector trail over to the service road I had come up in the morning.  The trail did not exist and I easily wasted 30 to 40 minutes hunting for it with no success.  The trail (had it existed) was to take me across the Newport Creek drainage and on over to my earlier trail I had ascended.  Instead, I was forced to descend another few hundred feet and ultimately found service road #4305-112 which brought me near Newport Creek where I found another unnamed trail taking me across Newport Creek and finally to my ascent trail to complete the loop.

A great day with lots of practice on navigation.  Including my extra scrambling around hunting for trails it was a 9.5 mile loop with a cumulative elevation gain of 2,981 ft.  

This trail is very exposed and has no water sources. Please take lots of water, especially if you are taking a dog. The trail is also rocky at times which can be rough on your dogs paws when it gets too hot.

We started hiking about 8am and there were a few cars already there. The beginning of the hike is always confusing with all the intersecting logging roads so it's important to have GPS or a good map if you're unfamiliar with the area.

It's always a rough climb and it was even rougher with the heat. I was very glad we started early but we probably should have started even earlier for my dog's sake. We went through 2 liters of water just for him and he was completely spent by the end.

There were lots of folks coming up as we were coming down and there were cars lining the road when we reached the trailhead.

Snow: we started to hit snow around 4500ft. It was no issue to cross but did obscure the trail somewhat so having a GPS is helpful here as well.

Trail: some trees down across the trail that didn't pose much of a problem. Some muddy areas around the snow patches

Bugs: bugs were buzzing but I didn't notice anything biting

Specs from Gaia: 7.42mi, 3hr 53min, 2492ft

Got a little bit of a late start and arrived at the trailhead at 10am.  There is no signage indicating where the trailhead is from the road, and it can be a little tough to find.  We found it because there were about 10 cars parked on the street and we figured it had to be it.  If you are approaching from Roslyn and hit Anna Bell Dr., you went too far.  

The hike was a constant journey up which gave me a good workout but the views were great along the way.  As others mentioned it can be difficult to figure out which paths to take during the service road portion, but some kind hikers did make some arrows to help others (see photo).  There are still a few snow patches but they can easily be crossed (we didn't need our spikes), and there is one section in the forest where the trail gets lost for about 15 feet due to snow but if you keep heading up you'll see the trail reappear over to the left.  

Overall I really liked this hike, and the views from the top are incredible.  When we got back to the gate there were still about 10 cars on the street but a bunch of folks had parked off to the side of the turnoff just before the gate as well.