A Great Place To Visit: The North Cascades
Sally Deneen
A mountain goat trudges north on what normally is considered a human hiking route, the Pacific Crest Trail, as an invigorating wind whooshes through Cutthroat Pass. From the spectacular vantage point 6,800 feet into the heavens, a hiker can see mountaintops in every direction: jagged granite Silver Star Mountain, smooth-topped Liberty Bell, and more. These rugged North Cascade mountains appear as a sea of peaks—peak after peak after peak, as if they were ocean waves.
A cloud moves over quickly and briefly drops big, splotchy raindrops. From here, where the droopy mountain hemlocks and distinctive silver firs of the western Cascades meet the swooping-branched Englemann spruce of the dry east side of the mountains, it's easy to see how the Cascades are an obstacle that catches the moisture pushing in from the ocean. As the clouds rise to clear the mountains, they usually drop a lot of rain and snow on the west side, but leave the east side colder, drier, dustier.
Writers fumble for words to describe the scenery along this stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail. “Words alone cannot describe the grandeur” and “even a camera cannot capture the spirit of this place,” as outdoors writer Karen Sykes put it. Jack Kerouac, who once was a fire tower lookout near Desolation Peak, gave it a try in his book Desolation Angels.
The North Cascades can inspire near-mystical experiences. Rising from the valleys to Mount Baker's 10,778-foot peak, the steep range in Greater Seattle’s back yard is the most glaciated area in the Lower 48. Glaciers carved many of the deep valleys, giving the mountains a grand, dramatic relief—much steeper than the greater peaks of the Sierra Nevada or Rockies.
Some 316 glistening glaciers melt water that adds brilliant blue and green hues to lakes. Glaciers help waterfalls roar year-round within the 684,000-acre North Cascades National Park Complex, which serves as the core of more than 2.1 million contiguous wilderness acres. (Pasayten Wilderness adjoins to the east, Mount Baker Wilderness to the west, Glacier Peak Wilderness to the southwest, and Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wilderness to the southeast.) Still more untamed forest falls within neighboring Okanogan-Wenatchee and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forests, and the wildlands of British Columbia.
“A wilderness experience that you have in the North Cascades is as close to being in Alaska as you'll get in the Lower 48 without being there,” says Bill Paleck, the first ranger to work in remote Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and now superintendent of North Cascades National Park Complex.
“There are volcanoes, glaciers, landslides, earthquakes. It's pretty much an alive mountain range,” says Jon Riedel, a National Park Service geologist. Windshield tourists see the rugged terrain by traveling between the Skagit and Methow Valleys on North Cascades Highway (Highway 20), a pretty drive and bicycling route with scenic overlooks, roadside exhibits, and access to campgrounds and hiking trails when weather permits (roughly April 15 until snow closes the road around Thanksgiving).
Volcano lovers can head farther east to ultra-popular Heather Meadows in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, where a short walk from the Artist Point parking lot provides an eye-popping view of snow-capped Mount Baker and the Nooksack Glacier of Mount Shuksan. The first 200 feet of the mile-long Artist Ridge Trail is wheelchair-accessible.
An easy way to travel deeper into the Cascades is to take a ferry up serpentine Lake Chelan for 55 miles to Stehekin, a tiny community surrounded by the North Cascades. You can't drive there; it's reachable only by boat, plane, or on foot. One way or another, 40,000 visitors a year get there. Some see what they can in a day. Others spend three to five days staying at a lodge, camping, hiking, bicycling, boating, fishing, kayaking, or lounging by the lake.
But what about the wilderness experience? Waterfall admirers, wildflower fans, hikers, and climbers follow countless trails, including a panoply that deliver lots of scenery for comparatively little effort. Four miles downhill from Cutthroat Pass, for example, is the stunning Cutthroat Lake, which is itself just a two-mile hike from the trailhead.
Or take the 6.2-mile roundtrip hike to Maple Pass, on the eastern boundary of North Cascades National Park. “We've seen bears. We've seen marmots. The wildflowers are beautiful,” says Lee Whitford, outreach coordinator for the North Cascades Institute. “It's a hike where I can take people who aren't in really good shape...The people have to work, and they know they've done a hike, but it's very doable.”
The trail from Rainy Pass to Cutthroat Pass is not located in official wilderness; it is part of the Okanogan National Forest's Sawtooth/Liberty Bell Roadless Area. At 230,000 acres, it is the largest roadless area in Washington.
“Somehow this highly scenic roadless area was overlooked for inclusion in the wilderness system. It's the only remaining roadless section of the Cascade Crest not formally designated as wilderness, and this grave error ought to be corrected,” Ron Adkison wrote in his 1993 book, Hiking Washington.
After years of legal wrangling, the Bush administration in May 2005 moved to undo a Clinton policy that protected roadless areas from most logging, mining, road building, and other intrusions. The new regulation asks governors to recommend whether protections should remain. While Washington Governor Christine Gregoire is widely expected to urge protection, the ultimate decision lies with the Bush administration. The Wilderness Society is working with its allies on a proposal that would safeguard the area by adding it to the National Wilderness Preservation System. “We owe it to current and future generations to protect the North Cascades,” says Doug Walker, who serves on The Wilderness Society’s Governing Council and chairs the board of REI.
Grizzlies, mountain lions, wolves, lynx, martens, wolverines—these and other animals join mountain goats in making a living within easy driving distance of the rapidly growing Vancouver-to-Seattle megalopolis. The challenge is to make sure that they can continue to peacefully co-exist.
Visitor Information
The North Cascade mountains fall under various jurisdictions, so the best place to call depends on whether you’re heading “East of the Mountains,” as the saying goes, or to the western slopes. Here's where to start:
East Side: Okanogan National Forest Visitor Center in the Wild West-themed tourist town of Winthrop (509-996-4000; ). Get trails information, books, maps, and camping/lodging information.
West Side: Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, which stretches south from Canada along the western slopes of the Cascades, is home to impressive snow-capped Mount Baker (District office 360-856-5700; ). Hikers trek 200-plus miles of trails.
Both sides: North Cascades National Park Service Complex offers 386 miles of hiking trails and 200-plus backcountry campsites (Visitor Center 206-386-4495 x11; ). Get trails information, maps, activity schedules, camping information, and backcountry permits. Hear ranger talks. Stehekin—reachable by boat, plane or foot—falls under the purview of the Complex's Lake Chelan National Recreation Area (360-856-5700 x340, then x14; ).
The Ridgeline: The Pacific Crest Trail, a national scenic trail zigzagging from Mexico to Canada, passes through North Cascades National Park Service Complex and Okanogan National Forest. For information, contact the Pacific Crest Trail Association ().
Accommodations: Some stunning scenic options are described in Tom Steinstra’s guidebook Pacific Northwest Camping. On the eastern slopes, the Mazama Country Inn (800-843-7951) features 100-plus miles of ski trails starting at the doorstep. An AAA four-diamond destination is the Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop (800-572-0493), which has on-site trails, including one that skirts Beaver Pond, a magnet for birds. The Winthrop Chamber of Commerce (888-463-8469) provides lodging information.
More info: The North Cascades Institute offers seminars, retreats, family getaways, and summer youth adventures (360-856-5700 x209; ). To see photos of the area, visit http://www.alpenglow.org.
Sally Deneen of Seattle wrote about the North Cascades' shrinking glaciers in the 2004 book, Feeling the Heat: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Climate Change (Routledge).
