Maple Pass Loop Hike--Is it the Best Hike Ever?

The ranger said we needed to be at Rainy Pass trail head before 6:00 a.m. to get a parking space. So we were up at 4:30 (after being awake from that alarmingly loud alarm last night). We left the campground at 5:00 a.m. for the one-hour drive in the dark.

On our first drive through North Cascades National Park, we could see none of the beauty around us. We arrived at the big parking lot at Rainy Pass, and there were only three cars parked ahead of us. It seemed that 6:00 a.m. on a Tuesday may be a little earlier than needed. 

We started our hike of the day just as it was getting light.

We were on the Maple Pass Loop, one of the most popular hikes in North Cascades National Park. The reviews on Alltrails recommended going counterclockwise on this loop. We could see the silhouettes of the mountain peaks around us before we could see the trail plainly in front of us. We had the mountain to ourselves this early in the morning.

We love a good sunrise on a mountain trail!

We didn't take the time to eat much breakfast, so Denisa was glad to find plenty of huckleberries on the trail. In fact, this trail was a berry feast! We found salmonberries, huckleberries, blueberries, and thimbleberries. That made for a nice breakfast fruit salad!

The trail took us over some scree fields, with loose rocks where some of our favorite wildlife make their homes.

While we usually find marmots in these rocky areas, this day we heard the squeak of a smaller mammal--pika. We heard them before we saw them. These little guys usually dart between the rocks too fast to get a picture. But early this morning, this guy posed long enough for a good picture. That's only the second time we have successfully gotten a pika picture in all the miles we have hiked over the last ten years. While they look like mice, they are actually in the rabbit family.

Going counter-clockwise on the loop brought us up a lot of elevation quickly, and our first landmark was Lake Ann. In the sunshine between the trees we had our second wildlife sighting this early morning.

This doe was a little surprised to see hikers up this high so early in the morning.

After 1.8 miles of hiking uphill, we had a decision to make. Do we take the detour to see Ann Lake up close, or just stay on the loop trail that overlooks the lake? We were still fresh this morning, so of course we walked the extra 1.5 mile to stand beside Ann Lake. 

Walking back from that detour we hiked right beside a ptarmigan sitting just a few feet from us. These birds don't scare easily, and she posed for pictures. She was in the same place when we circled back down the trail.

Some parts of the Maple Pass Loop were through thick forest. Notice how these trees don't grow straight up at the base? Instead, they bend downhill at their base before heading straight up. There's a name for this bent base phenomenon--soil creep. It's caused from the weight of snow and ice drifting down the mountain and holding the young tree in that bent position all winter.

The sun is now high enough in the sky to light up the mountains to our west . . .

while the mountains to the east are just hazy outlines in the sky.

We continued to climb, and by now we were looking down on Ann Lake.

Have we mentioned how good the berries were on this trail?

Every half-mile we rounded another curve in the trail and a new set of mountains appeared. We could see the maroon mountains on the right, and a whole new set of snow-laced gray mountains on our left. Pictures just can't do this majestic scenery justice!

We've hiked a lot of trails where you hike straight up, staring at the same mountain the entire time. But we were continually getting new views of new mountains as we walked around the loop.

As we climbed higher, Ann Lake got smaller and smaller.

We have wandered into more of God's wonders on the Maple Pass Loop.

While we were blessed to take a picture of a pika earlier this morning, Denisa will always stop to take pictures of the friendly marmots. This one got quite close as Denisa whipped out her camera.

We've said it before, but you can never have too many marmot pictures!

The same must be true about Ann Lake pictures.

While we only took one picture while we stood beside this lake, we kept taking pictures of it as we circled higher and higher above it.

As we looped ever-higher, another set of mountains appeared in front of us.

After another mile, we got to the highest point of the loop with views of the tallest snow-topped mountains. 

We could see the glaciers hanging on some of the tallest peaks in the national park. With over 300 glaciers, North Cascades National Park has the most glaciers of any park in the contiguous United States. Only Alaskan national parks have more.

This part of the country is known for its rain and cloudy skies. But we were blessed with clear skies that afforded us views of mountain peaks in every direction as we stopped at Heather Pass.

It was at this highest point at the pass that we decided it was time to sit and enjoy the views.

We had company at the top, as this curious marmot was peeking over the rocks.

We ate our lunch with some of the most beautiful mountain views we can remember. This might be our best. hike. ever. That's quite high praise because we have been blessed with so many wonderful hikes.

After a little rest and consuming some calories, we were ready to start our journey down on the back-side of the loop over Heather Pass.

You can see the trail zig-zagging down the mountain in front of us.

After hiking uphill all morning, we were looking forward to some downhill hiking.

We would say the views weren't quite as good on the back side of Heather Pass. With less mountain views, Denisa started taking pictures of flowers. Does anyone else think these mountain flowers look like Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Dr. Seuss books?

How could she walk past a butterfly sipping nectar from a purple daisy?

And what about this pine cone that a ground squirrel was working on? The top view of the inside of that pine cone looked like a white flower surrounded by purple. Doesn't that look too pretty to eat?

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Some of God's wonders are tiny like butterflies and wildflowers, and some of God's wonders are majestic mountains that stretch out as far as we could see.

We didn't take as many pictures of the last half of the loop because we were having to concentrate on our footing. It was steep and rocky, and it was a tough hike down.

After hiking up and then down, we had gone 8.8 miles when we got to the Rainy Lake spur trail. Would we opt to add another 1.4 miles to our total just to see another lake? This was a well-traveled trail that many non-hikers can walk. It was flat and paved and meanders through the woods easily. So we meandered, even though we were really tired by this time.

After that paved trail through the trees, the trail opened up to Rainy Lake views with wooden benches and a rail to keep hikers out of the lake. That's a little too touristy for our mountain lake standards.

So we hiked half-way around Rainy Lake to get a more rugged view without the crowd of people on those benches.

We finished the hike at 2:30. It was 67 degrees, a very nice afternoon temperature in August! We hiked 11.2 miles with 2,431 feet in elevation gain. That's a strenuous day of wandering God's wonders! But we were already thinking that this was one of the best hikes we've ever done in our entire lives. That's high praise from a couple of wanderers that love hiking!

We didn't sleep well at North Cascades National Park

At the casino RV Park, we enjoyed the last full-hook-up camp site we would have for a while. We took long showers and used unlimited electricity during our stay in Anacortes, Washington. We stocked up on groceries and supplies, because it felt like we were going into the wilderness--also known as North Cascades National Park. This less-visited national park was quite remote. The nearest little town had only two gas stations, one restaurant, and a post office. Even that nearest "civilization" was a 25-minute drive from our national park campground. So we knew we needed to come with everything we would need for the next week. Our drive from Fidalgo Island to North Cascades National Park was through Skagit River Valley. We saw miles of fruit trees, but most of the fruit had already been picked. We saw flower stands instead of fruit stands. When we drove through Marblemount, Washington, the sign said, "Last service for 73 miles." So we filled up with gas, glad to get it for ONLY $4.75/gallon. But that wasn't why we didn't sleep well at this national park.

Our Newhalen Campground was eight miles past the entrance of the national park. We followed the turquoise green Skagit River to get to our new campground.

After driving beside the river for miles, we had to cross the Skagit River on a one-lane bridge to get to our campground. Monitored by a timed stop light, it was good that we couldn't meet anyone on that narrow bridge. Is that the reason we were not sleeping well?

We set up for a six-night stay in our site in Newhalen Campground among the tall evergreen trees. We were beginning to recognize the differences between western hemlocks, western red cedars, and Douglas firs. We were enjoying half-price camping because of our senior park pass. This was a beautiful campground that only cost us $12 per night. That certainly wouldn't keep us from sleeping well at night!

North Cascades National Park is one of the few parks that doesn't charge an entry fee. There were no entrance stations or parking fees. Some say that is because it is a hidden gem that doesn't get as many visitors. But we found that it had definitely been discovered by hikers that can appreciate this remote beauty. After making the two-hour drive and getting the trailer set up, we hurried to the visitor center before it closed for the day. After getting some advice and a park map, we followed that advice to take a short hike to get our first view of the North Cascades mountains. "The Pickets" was an interesting jagged line of some of the tallest peaks in the park. We had to see that view from a distance, because there were no trails to this wilderness peak section.

Since we had no cell phone service in this remote location, we had to get weather information from the visitor center. They divided the park into "west side" which was closer to the ocean, and the "east side" which was on the other side of the mountains. The Cascade Mountains block most of the precipitation, making the east side warmer and drier. The day we arrived, the east side was ten degrees warmer than the west. But both sides were unusually warm by northern Washington standards. We were glad to find that the mountains cool off in the evenings, and night-time temperatures in the 50s in August made for very comfortable sleeping conditions. The temperature was not why we didn't sleep well.

We expected some cloudy weather, and we definitely got it. While North Cascades National Park is famous for its mountains, it also has some beautiful lakes. Besides the Skagit River, visitors can also visit Richardson Lake. It would take a little effort to get a better view of this remote lake.

There was only one road through North Cascades National Park. Highway 20 provided overlooks for Lake Richardson (above) and Diablo Lake (below). Highway 20 shows up on the short list of the most scenic roads in the country.

Back to the trailer, a woman on a bicycle asked if she might set up her tent on our tent pad behind the trailer. We clearly didn't need that space, and she did. She offered to pay, but we assured her that we were already getting a great deal on this camp site, and we'd love to host her for free. Ann was from Switzerland, and she was spending six months in North America, biking and camping. She had been in Jasper and Banff National Parks in Canada, and was heading to Seattle next. She biked alone, often riding on gravel roads. She figured out where she would pitch her tent as she goes. She was retired and had made international biking trips to Asia, Morocco, Europe, and North America for many years. She will return home in six months, or when her Visa expires. While she was preparing the daily meager meal that fuels her for most of the six months, we shared some fresh pineapple and food we had just purchased. That was a rare treat for someone that had to pedal all her own food over the mountains. What fun people we meet! But having a tenting neighbor at our site didn't affect our sleep.

While we were almost asleep in our trailer at 9:00 p.m., a surprisingly loud alarm went off. What?!? It continued loud and long, and we didn't know what the appropriate action should be. Should we hook up the trailer and get out of there as fast as possible? Maybe we shouldn't take that much time to hook up the trailer, and we should just get in the pickup and run for our lives? What direction should we drive--east or west? Was it a wildfire sweeping across the mountain right towards us? Or was that a storm alarm and we should hunker down? We went outside, and none of our camping neighbors were running for their lives. The eery alarm finally stopped and we waited . . . and waited . . . We had no cell phone service to call and ask questions, and no wifi to google for information. We had a hard time feeling safe enough to go to sleep that first night. We definitely did NOT sleep well our first night at North Cascades National Park.

The next day at the visitor center, we asked what was going on. They explained that because the phone signal was so bad here, they use a deafening alarm to alert local volunteer emergency crews to any little or big reason for them to report to the fire station. Last night's alarm was for a little reason, and we didn't need to run for our lives. The ranger at the visitor center desk agreed with us that a little head's up would be nice for campers that probably would have a hard time sleeping after an alarm like that. That alarm was why we didn't sleep well at North Cascades National Park.