Playtime!: North Cascades: Hidden Lake Hike

After 2 days of clouds and some rain, today was finally sunny! Brilliantly sunny in fact!

Dad and I had planned to hike to Sauk Mt. – a four mile hike to the top of a mountain that promised 360* views of the Cascades as well as opportunity to see Mt. Rainer and Puget Sound on a clear day, which today was!

With high hopes for a great walk we headed out toward Marblemount – the town just before the road enters North Cascades and the sign says that it’s the last “major” services for 69 miles! These major services consisted of 2 gas stations – one of which was closed and 2 family owned resteraunts. Yep, North Cascades is remote! As soon as we entered Marblemount Dad’s phone beeped at him – he had coverage here! I, however, did not! Dad needed gas in the Jeep so we stopped at the Shell Station, while he was pumping gas he checked his messages and had a few people to call back. While he was dealing with the phone calls, I went to check out the ladies room in the store!

Soon we were headed to the trailhead! We found the Forest Service Road we were supposed to go up, and when we got there there was a sign: Sauk Mt Trail Closed July 12-15 for trail maintenance. WHAT?????

The extra frustrating part here is that on Sunday we were at the visitor center and the ranger had highly recommended this trail to us, and told us nothing of it’s impending closure. The reason for the lack of information I realized is because we were talking to a National Park Service Ranger, the majority of the hiking trails, and overlooks and such, in the area are operated and maintained by the National Forest Service, as was obvious from a number of interactions with NPS personnel, the two government entities do not seem to communicate with each other!

Ok, going back to today… Luckily we had a few other options – and luckily the hiking books I’d bought were on my Kindle App and I could get them from my phone! After consulting the book and the map we decided to head to Hidden Lake.

At this point we decided we needed to let Mom know we’d changed the plan, just in case something happened and we didn’t come back on time – we decided to call and leave a message on her phone in hopes that she would travel into Marblemount to get help to find us. It later occurred to us that she likely wouldn’t drive the Motorhome and that was the only vehicle she had!

My book claimed that this hike is the “best hike on the face of the planet” – so needless to say the expectations were high! We headed down 2 Forest Service Roads to get to the trailhead and were way back into the wilderness!

The trail started out in a deep forest with tall cedars and lots of moss and plenty of creeks to cross! It was a steady climb, up, up, up! Eventually the trail came out of the forest and into an avalanche chute with expansive views! The trail continued to climb through the meadow and as we gained elevation the views got better and better!

The trail was 4.5 miles long ending at an old fire tower that looked down on Hidden Lake. Neither my dad nor I was really up for a 9 mile hike so we’d decided before we left that we weren’t going the whole way and that we’d probably walk for 2 – 2.5 hours and then turn around. This ended up being a good plan because at about 2.5 miles in there was a snow covered stream crossing that I wasn’t too excited about crossing. Dad went across and said it wasn’t too bad, but when I wouldn’t cross it he came back and getting back was much harder!

We settled into lunch right on the trail – I’d found a ledge to perch on and Dad just sat on the trail. While we were eating a man came down the trail coming from the top – as he crossed the creek he sunk into the snow up to his knee! He said he’d only made it about a mile beyond where we were before the snow got too deep and treacherous. Since it has been warm, the snow is soft in some places and hard in others and sometimes it’s melted underneath and you can’t see it on top! We knew then that we were for sure done going up and were heading down after we ate!

The downhill actually went fast and seemed relatively easy! I usually hate the downhill part, but this wasn’t so bad! Soon we were back at the car and heading back down the Forest Service Road to the campground!

Today I did something I have never done before – hiked with my iPod. I have always thought that hiking was about listening to the sounds of the forest and enjoying being outside, and usually it is, but having my iPod today really helped! Just like tunes help a road trip, they also help a good hike! Dave Matthews, Lady Gaga, & Rusted Root make great hiking companions!