The hike to the Hidden Lake Lookout is beautiful, and the drive and trail both add some adventure and thrill.
The crater on the forest road: Most recent trip reports talk about this crater about half a mile after you turn off into the forest road from Cascade River Road. I posted a video of how it went for us on the way down, hopefully you get an idea of how your vehicle would do. The whole road is narrow, keep in mind the last turnout you pass on the way down, you might have to reverse back to yield to on-coming uphill vehicles. With bushes along the narrow road, your clear coat is going to get some scratches too, if it's not already got them from travelling on other forest roads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owrSCY_hVPs
Here's the dash cam video of the forest road going up: https://youtu.be/7Y2JIRvP2n8
The trail has a mix of tread, some of the parts in the forest have soft tread, and the hike up the side of the mountain to get to the talus field is also soft and dry dirt, but it's exposed and brushy and narrow, and in today's afternoon heat it was not very enjoyable, but the profusion of Indian Paintbrush blooming in the slopes gave us joy, as well as watching butterflies hop from one flower to another. There are still streams flowing here.
Once you get to the talus field, the views open up, you see Mount Baker come into view, and you still need to go up another 1,000 feet. This is the hardest part of the trail IMO.
From the ridge, the lake comes into view, and there is a trail to get to the lookout. Look carefully here, you should not have to scramble, you should see a dirt trail that goes up. Coming down there were a couple parts though where I was nervous and progressed slowly, holding on to stable rocks. There is also some snow as you hike up the ridge, and looking at the snow from the boulder side, there is some risk of post-holing along the edges.
Views from the top were clear today, except for the haze from smoke. The haze was more pronounced in the valleys, and Glacier Peak and Mt. Baker were both slightly hazy too, but other closer peaks seemed quite clear.
I found a boulder south of the lookout to rest on and enjoyed the views to the south. Some beautiful peaks of the Alpine Lake Wilderness also visible from here according to the PeakFinder app.
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