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Alpine Scramble - Hidden Lake Peak

Hidden lake peak via the south ridge.

Mark Scheffer Mark Scheffer
August 14, 2017
  • Road recommended for high clearance only

  • The road to the trailhead from Cascade River Road is steep with large stretches where it is not possible for two cars to pass each other.  Hence why i led this as a weekday trip to (unsuccessfully) avoid lots of traffic.  

    The road is very rough and, while lower clearance vehicles did make it to the trail head, most non high clearance vehicles stopped about 3/4 mile short due to a very bad section of the road that was difficult to pass even in my higher clearance 4x4 Tacoma.  Returning at the end of the trip we fortunately only had one car going the other way that we had to get around and it was at a wide spot where we could pass.  There were 10-15 other cars that arrived after we did that day so even on a smokey weekday this trail is fairly busy.  

    The trail was in great shape but the BC fire smoke was exceptionally thick and visibility was a mile at the most. At times we could not see any other ridges/peaks around us due to the smoke. It also made for unpleasant breathing.  When clear the views from this approach and the summit area are exceptional.   Without the smoke and the bad road I would give this trip a rating of 5.  

     

     

We were originally going to do the trip as a loop, leaving the main trail at 5400 and heading to Sibley pass (see Tom Girard's trip from 2015 for full details). The climbers path is very easy to find and is well defined. However, due to the smoke we elected to do as short a approach as possible and took the main trail to the saddle between the main summit and the lookout summit.  from there a trail north to the true summit was easy to spot and follow.  This trail faded out after about 1/4 mile and it was just a rock and snow scramble to the summit.  

Going up we elected to drop down on the east side of the ridge to avoid the snow following what appeared to be a boot path. This almost immediately ended and it was a very unpleasant class 2 dirt and loose rock traverse to a point where we could gain the ridge again and drop to the west side.  The rest of the route  was on large blocky boulders and slabs but very straight forward to follow to the summit.  

Due to a very large swarm of biting flying ants of some kind that had the entire summit block covered we did not scramble the last 10 feet to the true summit.  

Returning back to the saddle we stayed on the west side of the ridge and descended easy snow and class 2 rock.  The return on the trail was uneventful.