Austere & Hard to Access Trailheads

Another online group I'm a part of had a great thread discussing austere and hard to access trailheads. As we all know, hiking trails are getting very crowded out there, especialy with COVID. The rougher it is to get to the trailhead, the smaller the crowds! For the purposes of this thread, I would consider a trailhead requiring 10+ miles of forestry road driving, or 4x4 vehicle recommended/required, to fall in this category.

Anyone got any favorites to share?

To start things off, Bare Mountain. 20+ miles of FR driving, decent amount of potholes.

https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/bare-mountain

 

Been there. Bring a chainsaw if you're going early in the season.

 

Highly recommend Rock lake, outside of Skykomish. I went in early August and it was still buggy but by now should be better, also there are rarely people.

47°39'16.4"N 121°19'13.8"W is where you park. Probably 30 minutes on a forest road. The trail itself is less traveled so best to use gaia to map your route. I think I can send you my exact path somehow or post a screenshot if you're interested. We kept going up to panorama lake - here is a trip report (not mine) https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report.2018-10-18.6437092905

I've been trying to locate some Alpine lakes accessible by forest road. Have a SUP (non inflatable). Kachess is the easy choice off i90 but not as serene and more heavily trafficked. Any ideas there?

 

I'd love a screenshot of your route if you've got it!

 

That is a cool spot. Thanks!


Regarding your question, Lost Lake is near Kachess, but a lot more isolated and nice, IMHO:
https://goo.gl/maps/uCTarfAjm91KbZyV8

Paddled around there fishing. No bites, but that is normal for me.

 

This is the full track to panorama


And this is zoomed in to rock


Sorry for formatting issues, second comment ever.