North Cascades National Park

I had a beautiful 7-mile hike picked out for North Cascades National Park, but Mother Nature said, “nope!”

Charli and AC pose in front of the entrance sign for North Cascades National Park.

Re-route!

Due to some wildfire activity in the Lake Chelan region of the park, Maple Pass Loop was closed. Consequently, all my back-up hikes were nestled in the same region so those were off limits, too! So our first stop was the Visitors Center where we asked a Park Ranger for plan C. This particular park ranger over-estimated us and recommended the 10-mile Thornton Lakes Trail. I’m sure it would have been lovely, but my 7-miler was already pushing the limits so we politely declined that one. His next suggestion was a much more manageable 4-miler on Sauk Mountain, which is actually outside of North Cascades, in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Great! We’re in!

Before heading to Sauk Mountain, we drove the North Cascades Scenic Drive as far as we could–the last section, going through the fire-prone area, was guided by a pilot car and we opted not to drive that portion because it would have taken a considerable amount of time to get out and back. The drive east wasn’t too exciting, but the drive back westward had great views of some of the peaks.

Trail of the Cedars

After our drive, we tackled two short hikes in North Cascades: Trail of the Cedars and Ladder Falls Trail. Trail of the Cedars was a quick .3 mile jaunt through a cedar grove along the Skagit River. The hike began by crossing a suspension bridge, which I always think is cool! The rest of the hike was a nice, short loop with sun beaming through the towering, moss-covered cedar trees on one side, and babbling ice blue water on the other.

Ladder Falls Trail

Ladder Falls Trail was also pretty unique. This .4 mile trail also started with a suspension bridge; this bridge led to an active hydroelectric power plant. The trail continued beyond the plant, up about 70 stairs to a waterfall. The pictures don’t do Ladder Falls justice–it’s much bigger than it looks in my photos!

Ladder falls cascades down from the rock wall

An old waterwheel is nestled among the moss int the woods

An art deco style hydroelectric power plant with the name Gorge in green letters on the lower right side.

Next up was a picnic lunch of ham and cheese, chips, and apples. Then we headed to Sauk Mountain. The drive up was 7 miles on a gravel road that looked like this:

GPS shows a route of many small switchbacks

Sauk Mountain

That map should have been a warning for what we were about to do. We pulled up to the parking lot and realized we were about to hike up this monster. (Can you see the teeny tiny people on the trail?)

I’ll be honest here, I almost chickened out. That trail is all switchbacks and it looks steeeeeeeep. But we found some hikers who had just finished and asked if it was worth it. Of course, they said “yes” and assured us that the switchbacks weren’t as bad as they looked. So we headed up.

Going Up

According to the interwebs, it takes an average of 2 hours to hike this roundtrip 4.2 mile trail so we estimated it would take us 2 and a half. As we started up, AC bet that we had 10 switchbacks and she started counting. We got to number 8, looked up and immediately adjusted our guess to 30 switchbacks! But we didn’t stop. We kept putting one foot in front of the other and every 6 switchbacks we’d break for a sip of water. The hikers we talked to were right, it wasn’t as bad as it looked. It was still hard, don’t get me wrong, but the switchbacks varied in length and steepness, and some of them wound through the forest so we got some shady breaks. We finally reached the top after switchback #25 and the views were beautiful. From our perch, we could see Mount Baker, Mount Shuksan, the Twin Sisters Range, the Cascades, and the Skagit River. And, it only took us 50 minutes to ascend!

Panorama from the peak of Sauk Mountain shows distant snow-capped mountains

Coming Down

We took some time to snap pictures, catch our breath, and eat a snack before we headed back down. It’s amazing how much the view changed on that same trail. On the descent, we saw a glacier-topped peak and lots of wildflowers that we completely missed on the way up.

Around the side of Sauk Mountain, a glacier-capped mountain peeks through.

We made it down in 38 minutes which means our total time of 1:28 was way better than the 2:30 we gave ourselves! Tired, but satisfied and proud, we got in the truck, and headed to our Hipcamp for the night, which had a lovely view of Mount Baker.

Until next time,

Charli