Posts In The “Cascade Mountains” Category
Government Camp, Oregon is the main settlement near the ski resorts at Mt. Hood. The town’s name derives from a government convey of munitions destined for Oregon forts that camped there in 1849. The convoy was following the Barlow Road, a toll road that was the last overland segment of the Oregon Trail before reaching…
Artist Point, at altitude 5,100ft (1,554 m) is a popular summer destination at Mt. Baker. A paved road leads right to the top, for spectacular mountain views. And a short hike along Kulshan Ridge leads to an even better viewpoint atop 5,247 ft (1,599 m) Huntoon Point. The road to Artist Point is unplowed and…
10,786 ft (3,288 m) Mt Baker has two major commercial ski bases, White Salmon and Heather Meadows, but also is a busy backcountry ski area. Rising above the Bagley Creek basin, the steep slope of 5,742 ft (1,750 m) Table Mountain is particularly popular and was covered with ski tracks when we visited. On our…
The waterfront city of Bellingham city lies just 21 miles (34 km) south of the U.S.-Canada border and is the closest major center to 10,786 ft (3,288 m) Mt Baker. We’d passed Bellingham many times in trips by car, and boat, to and from Canada, but had never spent much time there. On a weekend…
During a late-season heavy snowfall at Snoqualmie Pass, we returned to the Gold Creek Sno Park, this time to hike towards Kendall Peak Lakes. The season for this snowshoe hike typically extends to early March, but it was still viable mid-April with the several inches of fresh snow that had recently fallen. We were among…
Snow Lake is the most popular summer hike in the Alpine Wilderness area of Wenatchee and Snoqualmie National Forests. The trailhead is just a one-hour drive from downtown Seattle, and reaching a viewpoint over the lake is an easy a 2.3-mile (3.7 km) hike from the trailhead with a modest elevation gain of 1,200 ft…
On our second day of snowshoeing at Mr. Rainier, we descended along the Lower Lakes trail from Paradise village along a marked intermediate snowshow trail. From there, we climbed up the south end of Mazama Ridge and followed it north, continuing back to the parking lot by retracing the previous day’s route up. Conditions were…
Panorama Point, on the flank of Mt. Rainier, is 6,964 ft (2,123 m) above sea level and aptly named. Mt. Rainier fills the sky to the north, the Nisqually River descends southwest, and southward the Cascade Range extends to the horizon, with clear views to 8,363-ft (2,549 m) Mt. St. Helens in Washington and 11,250-ft…
Mt. Rainier is the highest mountain in Washington at 14,411 ft (4,392 m) and is clearly visible at vantages throughout the state, including Seattle. The height makes it a popular, but difficult, mountaineering location. Each year about 10,000 attempt an ascent, but only about 5,000 reach the summit. Most ascents take 2-3 days, and the…
The Gold Creek Sno-Park, on the eastern side of Snoqualmie Pass, is one of more than 120 state-maintained public winter recreation areas in Washington. And being so close to Seattle, it is one of the more popular. A Sno-Park is simply a parking lot cleared of snow. Some support non-motorized use only, but two-thirds are…
The snowshoe route to Skyline Lake at Stevens Pass is a popular one for its spectacular mountain views. The trail is reasonably short at 3 miles (4.8 km), but with an elevation gain of 1,100 ft (335m), it’s not a quick in-and-out. The mountain views along the way to the lake are excellent, but are…
One of the many reasons we loved spending time in Norway was the countless boat-accessible view hikes. Washington state’s mountain hikes aren’t nearly as close to the water, but they do compete well with Norway for fabulous scenery. When we’d previously lived full-time in Seattle, we spent most of our free time on Dirona and…
Franklin Falls, just west of Snoqualmie Pass, gush 70 ft (21m) over a cliff into a pool below, with a narrow hiking trail that leads almost underneath. The falls are spectacular in the spring runoff, but even more so after particularly cold winter weather, when icicles encrust the cliff face. They reminded us of frozen…
Twin Falls is a popular and easy hike about a 45-minute drive east of downtown Seattle along I-90. The 2.6-mile (4 km) round-trip route, with an elevation gain of 500 ft (152 m), follows a well-maintained path alongside the Upper Snoqualmie River. Several viewpoints to the falls are en route, and the hike ends at…
A forest fire lookout has stood on 1,700 ft (518m) Heybrook Ridge near Steven’s Pass since 1925, starting with a simple tent platform. Successively taller towers were built, culminating with the current 67-ft (20 m) lookout completed in 1964. It’s one of only 106 remaining forest fire lookouts in the state, down from a peak…