Cascade Pass Trail - Is this the best hike ever?

We had looked forward to the hiking in North Cascades National Park for a very long time, and we were finally living it. Let's just say it early, and many times: "We have wandered in more of God's wonders!"

Hiking in beautiful spots does come with some planning and an early alarm clock setting. We were up at 5:00 and left at 5:30 when the roads were still dark. The 38-mile trip to the trail head took us well over an hour to drive.

That's because the drive was on smooth Highway 20 for only 15 miles. Then we turned onto the winding narrow Cascades River Road for 10 miles. The next five miles was on even narrower washboard dirt roads with one lane bridges.

We drove the last 8 miles straight up the mountain on even narrower dirt roads filled with potholes. But by then we were seeing peeks of the peaks around us. When the views were this good out the pickup window on the drive, we knew we were approaching something really special!

Even waking up this early, we got one of the last spots in the parking lot at the trailhead. We have to say it was one of the prettiest parking lot mountain views ever!

We could hardly wait to get on the trail! It was 6:40 a.m. and 45 degrees, and we were ready to hike up a mountain.

The early morning sunshine was lighting up the mountain tops around us. In all the early morning pictures you will see us, almost in the dark in the shadow of the mountain.

We had to hike up 35 switchbacks to get to Cascade Pass. We were well up the mountain by the time we were in the sunshine with the beautiful views of the Cascade Mountains more at eye level.

Wow! We have wandered into more of God's wonders!

On this early morning departure, we had our clothes laid out and our backpacks already packed. We ate a quick bowl of cereal at the trailer, so Denisa was glad to have plentiful purple huckleberries for breakfast snacks along the way.

We also packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a morning snack on the trail. After years of hiking, it finally occurred to Denisa that trail berries would make a delightful addition to that PB&J. Yum!

After triumphing over the 35 switchbacks, we were at eye level to these jagged peaks, with their glaciers clinging to the sides.

The last mile of the trail was almost flat, traversing the side of the mountain. We were up above tree line, and still in the shade from the tall peaks east of us. 

These mountain-side sections were sometimes through fields of scree. That's the hiking term for the small rocks that have crumbled off the side of the mountain, leaving a difficult surface to walk through.

We almost always find marmots in these high elevation rocky sections. But this morning we also heard the squeaks of the tiny pikas that also make their homes in the rocks. Pikas are always quick to hide in the rocks and are almost impossible to photograph. But this magical morning, this pika posed on the rocks instead of scurrying away. While they look like a mouse, they are more closely related to the rabbit. That makes them even cuter to Denisa.

You can see our trail in the shade, and the sun-drenched mountain views. You can also see that we had the trail almost to ourselves this early in the morning.

It was easy to take pictures with no one else in them . . . at first.

We must have stopped for too many pictures, because the long line of hikers was catching up with us. The good part of that was we could trade picture-taking with others when we got to especially grand overlooks.

We were enjoying this beauty in late August, but it still looked and felt like springtime in the top of the Cascade Mountains. We hadn't seen such fresh spring wildflowers in a while.

Once we hiked around the bend, we had views of new mountains with even larger glacier fields clinging to their tips.

By zooming in to the glaciers, we could see some of the blue snow at their base. That blue color is an indicator of the age of the snow that never completely melts.

We got to our destination--Cascade Pass--at 9:30.

It soon became crowded at the pass. While it was harder to pose for a picture with no one else in it, it was also easier to find a photographer to snap a picture of us together.

From here, hikers could continue further into the mountains that stretched before us. We hadn't planned on that because those hikes entail a lot more elevation gain.

Another option is to continue to Sahale Glacier. That's the large flat glacier as we looked past Cascade Pass to the left. We probably should have pressed on to that destination. But our legs were already reminding us that we had tackled 1800 feet in elevation this morning. To continue to Sahale would be more miles, and more importantly--more  elevation gain.

But it was too beautiful and too early to just turn around and head back to the pickup. So instead of turning left on the trail to Sahale Glacier, we headed to the right and straight up the mountain.

We had read that mountain goats were often seen in this area, and we were determined to find some. We could tell this was one of their hang-outs, based on the fresh goat hoof prints we found on the side of the mountain.

We also found plenty of the winter fur they were shedding during their short summer season.

In search of mountain goats, we did our best mountain goat imitation and headed straight up that steep slope. We could see the trail of scree we traversed earlier now far below us. We could also see a steady stream of hikers coming up this popular trail.

We could also see the mountain peaks getting closer to our eye level as we climbed higher.

We found great mountain goat hide-outs. We happened upon three different ponds sitting on the side of the mountain, providing a perfect water source for animals.

While some of them looked quite grand, others were just tiny.

We had to do some bush-whacking to spot this little lake that hadn't been seen by human eyes in a while.

We couldn't say it often enough--we had wandered into more of God's wonders!

We were now next door to the glaciers we had been admiring all morning. We considered a little walk over to them. But distances are deceiving, and hiking through that scree would be brutal. We decided to enjoy them from this closer distance instead.

While Mark continued to scramble, Denisa was content to sit and rest on the rocks.

While she was resting, she was joined by a curious marmot. These inquisitive animals are easy to photograph.

While we had enjoyed huckleberries on the forested slopes earlier, these open valleys were filled with big beautiful blueberries. We sat and ate our picnic lunch, followed by a very fresh berry dessert.

We enjoyed having these views all to ourselves. We lingered in the mountains, and took way too many pictures of the views in every direction.

We were on top of that mountain when Mark got the message, "iPhone out of storage." We had literally filled his phone with beautiful pictures!

So we ate our picnic lunch and deleted duplicate pictures, and kept on taking more.

All the while we were hoping to see mountain goats. The amount of hair caught in the bushes was an indicator that they were close by.

The problem with bushwhacking up the side of the mountain was that it was harder to get back down. It was a tough climb getting back down to the pass after that mountain-top experience.

While we never spotted goats, we found our second pika of the day. After ten years of mountain hiking and only getting two pika pictures, we got two pika pictures on this special Cascade Pass Trail in one day.

We started the hike back down, now in the sunshine.

The sweeping views of the mountains and the glaciers made us feel very small. You can barely see Denisa in the bottom right corner of the picture below.

The marmots were awake on our trip down-hill. They are also called whistle-pigs, and they were whistling. When Mark whistled back, one marmot climbed up the rocks quite close to him.

Wildlife pictures on a cell phone are usually poor quality. But when the marmot was so close, even a cell phone can take a good picture.

As the trail went back into the trees, we got our last view of the mountains, even though they were no longer lit up by the early morning sunshine. Then we started the 35 switchbacks down on this gentle downhill slope. We hiked 9.8 miles with 2,165 feet in elevation gain. Our app also pointed out that we were moving for 5.5 hours.

Once back to the pickup, we saw that the parking lot was crowded with vehicles jammed into every small space. Then we counted 81 more cars parked along the road. This was a popular trail on a beautiful summer day. We left at 2:00, and the afternoon summer temperature was 74 degrees. Considering that the road doesn't open until July and will close again with the first early snow fall, this trail has a very short season for hikers. It was a long bumpy ride back down the road. We again crossed the one-lane bridge at Marblemount. We learned that this bridge was due for repairs and will be closed ten days from now, further shortening the hiking season this year. We were lucky and blessed to get to wander God's wonders today.

We stopped in the town of Marblemount for gas. The signs on the road warn that this was the last place for gasoline for 72 miles, so we knew to take advantage of getting gas now in this remote location. Likewise, we were taking advantage of hiking all we could during our visit to North Cascades National Park in its remote location. In the last few days we have taken two long hikes here that were very different and two hours apart. The mountains here provide very different views, and we consider both of these hikes two of our favorites of all time!