Hiking With Maxine To A North Cascades Hidden Lake While In Texas

No, that is not yet one more view of Fort Worth's Tandy Hills you are looking at in the picture.

What you are looking at is Maxine, in front of Hidden Lake, that being that turquoise body of water, with some of the mountains of North Cascade National Park in the background.

This time of year Maxine goes on a hike, or two, every weekend, weather permitting.

When I got this Monday morning's weekend hiking report and read that Maxine had hiked to Hidden Lake I was not quite sure if I remembered which hike that one was, though it seemed familiar.

So, I looked at the webpage I'd made about the Cascade Mountains and saw the photo below and the accompanying text which clearly brought back the memory of the Hidden Lake Hike.

Maxine said when her hiking group reached the part of the hike that continued on up a pointy peak on which sits a lookout that only one hiker tried to reach the lookout, but gave up when vertigo caused too much dizziness.

Now, I am a bit acrophobic, but I do not remember hiking to that lookout to be at all vertigo inducing. But, it was likely 20 years go, give or take a year, that I last saw this location. It could have changed. Below is me, laying down on a granite slab, below the Hidden Lake lookout, in the same location as Maxine, above, albeit with me at a slightly higher elevation.

Maxine's other hike, this week, was to the Park Butte Lookout, accessed from Schrieber's Meadow on the south side of the Mount Baker volcano.

Well, getting to the Park Butte Lookout I do remember making me nervous, with being in the lookout being vertigo inducing, what with it perched on a pointy pinnacle, with a steep drop off on one side, which regularly haunts my nightmares. Then again, who knows how accurately I remember this? My nightmares about Park Butte may have altered the memory.

Anyway.

It strikes me as indicative of the sad state to which I have fallen, that today I went hiking on some rather nondescript hills, seeing scenery that, quite honestly, really is not all that scenic, while just a few years ago, when I lived in Washington, I could drive a few miles to the east and experience real mountains and scenery the likes of which you see above and go on an 8 mile round trip hike with a 3,400 foot elevation gain.

I really need to move back to Washington. Then again, there are many things I do like about Texas....

HPDATE: For detailed information about the Hidden Lake Trail hike go to the 10 Adventures North Cascades National Park Hidden Lake Trail article.