North Cascades National Park

Various Day Trips

Hidden Lake Peaks are in North Cascades National Park and are reached by following the Sibley Creek drainage about 5 miles from the parking lot. It has been a favorite day hike of mine for years, and is about a three hour drive out of my Seattle home.

The hike begins in forest for about the first mile or so then breaks out into a open slope. This portion of the trail can be dry, dusty, and fly-ridden for the next mile or two. The trail near the top levels out along a ridge filled with white granite boulders, and may require the crossing of some steep snow fields early in the summer.

After this brief level stretch full of expansive views to Mount Baker, Lookout Mountain, and down the Sibley Creek drainage towards Marblemount the rate of ascent picks up again, but not too tough, until you reach Hidden Lake.

The national park boundary is crossed into at the lake. From Hidden Lake, one can climb another 300 airy feet to the former lookout on top of the peak. I tend to take this hike in mid –August or later so this steep climb up a narrow dirt trail and over large boulders is almost always snow-free. But I understand it can be very treacherous if it is still snowed in, so use common sense.

From the lookout, one gets a 360 degree view of the North Cascades including a southeastern panorama of the famous Ptarmigan Traverse region from Johannesburg Mountain to Dome Peak.

Directly east of Hidden Lake you look towards Boston and Sahale Peak and the Cascade Pass region. Look closely and you can see the trail to the final approach to Cascade Pass.

To the northeast one looks to massive Eldorado Peak and its neighbor peaks.

Looking south from the lookout perch one can see very craggy Mount Buckindy and the tremendous snowfields of Snowking Mountain.

Most of the photos on the linked pages are from recent trips when I had a digital camera with me, though I’ve been on this hike many times before and have taken numerous slide images. This is also the place where I once accidentally left a nice zoom lens on top of the lookout peak, before discovering my loss in Seattle.