East Side, North Cascades Part IV
I first discovered the Early Winters Spires long before I knew much about the geography of Washington, by way of the Early Winters gear & clothing company — the first people to market a product made with Gore-Tex. The catalogs that came in the mail throughout high school were some of my favorite gear porn. I don't think we ever purchased anything from them, but the catalogs left a lasting impression. I thought they'd long since gone out of business. It turns out they were sold a couple of times, renamed, and no longer resemble their past self.
So I was excited about heading east on 20 towards Rainy Pass and Washington Pass. I had Linette drive so I could look out the window. As we made our way towards Rainy Pass, I started to see bright yellow larches way up on the ridges. I'd been wondering if the larches would be starting to turn. Unfortunately the smoke also got thicker as we went east. By Washington Pass it was pretty bad. After looking briefly for dispersed camping, we headed down to the Lone Fir Campground (which is a bit too close to the highway) and set about camp chores.
We got an early start in the morning and headed back up to the overlook at Washington pass to photograph the spires. The smoke had improved, but only marginally. While the morning light was nice, the sky was dull and gray. After some photos we headed over to the Maple loop trailhead, and by mid-morning we were looking down into the green water of Lake Ann, admiring the patches of brilliant color on the surrounding slopes. We had lunch on the ridge above Heather Pass, and then I made a detuor up to point 6870 which afforded an excellent perspecitve of the area. At Maple Pass the scenery got even better, the larches brilliant gold.
It is hard to believe that this area isn't actually designated as wilderness. There are several hundred square miles of spectacular mountains east of the park, south of the Pasayten, north of Chelan-Sawtooth — all public land. But none of it is protected.
We finished up the loop, and after seven straight days of hiking, Linette and Ethan were ready to go home. Not me. I was feeling warmed up and would have been happy to pack up a weeks worth of food and start walking from Rainy Pass — in any direction. Alas, reality is just that, and we had to be back at work in two days. However, I feel fortunate to have hiked more than 50 miles through some spectacular wilderness — with my family. Not too many people get to do this with their five year old.
Many of the people we ran into throughout the week were surprised to see a five year old on the trail. They made odd comments to the affect of "I didn't know kids could hike. Maybe we should try taking <kids name> hiking." We spend a lot of time hiking and people are almost always happy to see Ethan, usually giving him praise or encouragement. People have been surprised to see him two days from the nearest trail head, or at the top of a mountain, but I'm perplexed that so many people could seem surprised that hiking is something a kid could do at all.
On the way home we stopped in Everett at Scuttlebutt Brewing Company for dinner and a Pint of Hoptopia, one of the better Imperial IPA's I've had in a while. The place was crowded and I immediately wished I could trade the roar of voices for the sound of ice crashing down Johannesburg Mountain. We got a six pack of Hoptopia to go (the packaging is great too), got back on the freeway, and were home four hours later.