North Cascades National Park Complex

Campsite

We stayed at Glacier Peak Resort and Winery which is this cute little place with cabins, RV spots, tent sites, and a small winery! One afternoon I went over to the winery for a tasting and they have some pretty good stuff. The most unique one was a blend of red wines from 2020 called Trilogy. It was smoky. Like smoke forward, hit you in the face smoky. And it was awesome. I had never had a smoky wine like that before.

We stayed in an RV spot from Sunday – Friday but had to move to a tent spot for the weekend. I think I actually preferred the tent spot if I’m being honest. It felt like you were deep inside the forest, which we basically were. The lack of hookups and full tree coverage caused us some problems with power, but thats what generators are for!

Thunder Knob Trail

Thunder Know Trail was awesome! As far as bang for your buck, I think this has been my favorite hike out of the last three parks. Relatively short (a little over 3.3 miles with the new trailhead location not listed on alltrails) and on the easier side, this hike dished out mossy forests and spectacular mountain views. If you are in the area this one is a must. It gets bonus points for being puppy friendly.

Maple Pass

This hike was at the top of the list for a lot of people. Maple Pass Trail varies in length depending on what site you look at. But our best guess is a little over 7 miles. There isn’t any one particular spot in this hike that makes it hard, but it is relentless. We went counterclockwise and the uphill seemed to never end. We were probably about 3/4 of the way through the hike before we started to consistently go downhill. There are views at every turn though, so picture breaks double as breathers!

The other major knock was the bugs. I’m pretty sure I heard them laugh every time I spritzed the bug spray. Once you got away from the thick undergrowth to where the trees were more sparse the bugs thinned out. I wore shorts and a tank top but I’d suggest wearing more to protect yourself a little from the bugs.

We ended up starting too late so the last bit of the hike was in the dark. Finding adequate time to hike some of these amazing, but longer trails with Nick working traditional hours has been a struggle.

Even with all of that, make no mistake – these were the best views we saw on our visit and the hike was 1000% worth it. The pictures don’t even begin to do this scenery justice.

Road 20 Scenic Drive Snippet

Up until this point, the fires in the area had not been much of an issue at all. Sometimes it would be a bit hazy, but the winds must have changed Wednesday 😦

We had planned to take a drive, stop at a couple of the closer lookout points, maybe do a couple of short nature walk trails that the dogs were allowed on. We ended up only doing one of the trails because the smoke was so bad, and the views were obviously affected. Some of the views were still pretty cool, but they would have been gorgeous if not for the smoke.

Places of note that we stoped include: Trail of the Cedars Nature Walk, George Creek Falls Overlook, Diablo Dam, and Diablo Lake Overlook

Cascade Pass Trail Blue Lake Trail

The fires continued to be a nuisance, smoking us out of our hike on Friday. We were supposed to do Blue Lake Trail but the air quality was the worst it had been the whole trip. So we decided to opt out.

On Saturday I had planned to do the Cascade Pass Trail. Something to note about North Cascades National Park is that it is part of three intertwined areas; North Cascades National Park, Ross Lake, and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. This means that you could be in the area and not actually step foot in the official National Park. I had Planned this hike specifically so we would get some face time in the actual park. But mother nature had other plans.

On our way up to the hike we were meet by a ranger blocking the road about 7 miles from the trailhead. Although the air was slightly better that day, the fire was making it unsafe to use the road. So the closest we got to hiking in the park was on our Maple Pass hike where we stepped across the boundary for a picture. Oh well, maybe next time.

We still wanted to take advantage of the time we had carved out, so we decided to try the Blue Lake Trail that we had missed out on the previous day. The hike up to the lake was pretty and the dogs had fun. The lake was cold so even though we had the option of going in we decided against it.