The North Cascades are quite rugged and beautiful. We highly recommend a backpacking trip in this area! We did the 56-mile route below in August 2019 and had wonderful weather! When we thruhiked the PCT in 2018, we hiked through this area in mid to late September and were rained on for two weeks straight. Planning a loop including the PCT in this area was a bit of a challenge. North Cascades National Park has a nice map showing lots of trail in and around the park, but it turns out that many of the trails haven’t been maintained in years or are closed. We strung together portions of the park’s popular Devil’s Dome Loop, the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT), and the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). We also did some hitchhiking. The hiking to get up to the PCT was quite challenging. Once we were on the PCT, which is graded for stock animals, it became much easier. We started the hike at East Bank Trailhead in the National Park on Hwy 20. We ended at Hart’s Pass Trailhead just outside of the Pasayten Wilderness, which is accessible by a dirt road off of Hwy 20. We were hoping to make it to Rainy Pass on Hwy 20 for easier hitchhiking but ran out of time.
The red line is the route we hiked in 2019. The orange line is the PCT detour we hiked in 2018.
Resources:
Permit:
Our trip did not require a permit. Permit information, current trail conditions, and maps can be found on the National Park and Forest Service websites:
https://www.nps.gov/noca/index.htm
https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/okawen/recarea/?recid=79431
Planning:
We found this North Cascades NP Wilderness Trip Planner Map to be helpful:
ttps://www.nps.gov/noca/planyourvisit/upload/Wilderness-Trip-Planner-2017_compliant.pdf
Getting there:
There is not a shuttle or public transportation serving this area. Hitchhiking or two cars are necessary to do the route we did.
Our Trip:
August 14-16, 2019
During our 2018 PCT thruhike, we hiked every open mile of the PCT. We did miss 84.1 miles of the official PCT due to trail closures though. Don’t worry–we more than made up for those missed miles through detours! Most of our official miles missed were due to fires burning in Washington. So when we came back to the USA this summer to visit family in Washington, last year’s fire closures gave us a perfect excuse to escape back to the PCT! We reviewed last year’s fire closures and convinced our families to do some car camping in North Cascades National Park. Then we headed out for a 3-day, 2-night trip in the Pasayten Wilderness.
Here is a summary of the official PCT miles we missed due to trail closures during our 2018 thruhike:
- Southern California:
- 8.6 miles in the San Bernardino National Forest near Idyllwild from Spitler Peak Trail junction to Tahquitz Valley Trail junction due to the 2013 Mountain Fire (PCT mile 168.6 to 177.2)
- 3.8 miles in Angeles National Forest from Highway 2 to Buckhart Trail junction due to an endangered species (Mountain Yellow Frog) closure (PCT mile 390.2 to 394)
- Oregon:
- 16.2 miles in Crater Lake National Park, we followed the Crater Lake Rim alternate trail instead of the official PCT due to the 2017 Spruce Lake Fire (PCT mile 1823.0 to 1839.2) — We did these miles back in 2015 though!
- Washington:
- 16.2 miles in Goat Rocks Wilderness from Coyote Trail Junction to White Pass (Hwy 12) due to the Miriam & Clear Fork Fires (PCT mile 2278.6 to 2294.8)
- 20.1 miles in Glacier Peak Wilderness from Cloudy Pass Trail Junction to Stehekin Valley Road due to the Bannock Lakes Fire (PCT mile 2551.8 to 2571.9)
- 19.2 miles in Pasayten Wilderness from Harts Pass to Woody Pass due to the Holman Fire (PCT mile 2622.0 to 2641.2) — Done now! 🙂
Daily Trail Journals
Day 1 – 19.9 miles
We were headed to Washington state to visit my sister’s family, so we decided to take advantage of being so close to the PCT by hiking some of the trail that was closed last year due to forest fires. The best loop we found let us hike the Holman-fire section of trail. We went camping for a few days in North Cascades NP with Jenny’s family, and this morning Travis dropped us off at the trailhead for our hike. We had coffee at the trailhead. Yum! Up, up, up, and up some more is how we spent our morning. Eventually we got to a beautiful meadow and hiked a bit of flat, before the difficult trail resumed by throwing a mix of steep ascents and descents our way. Despite the difficulty, it is great to be back here. The views are outstanding. Last year the weather wasn’t so great when we were hiking in this part of Washington, but today was perfect. We saw many nice birds, chipmunks, marmots, and bear poop on the trail today, and as we were setting up camp a very large bat came swooping by many times. It was neat! We saw 8 people today. For dinner we ate PB noodles with an avocado mixed in. Yum!!
– Tim
Day 2 – 26.6 miles
We had a great day of hiking. We had awesome views and met some nice people. We camped on Devil’s Pass at a trail junction last night. One of the trails was the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT), which goes from Glacier National Park in Montana to Olympic National Park on the Washington coast. This morning we met 3 westbound PNT thruhikers. We woke up to a rain fly full of condensation inside and out. We started the morning heading east on the PNT for 5 miles until we hit the PCT at Holman Pass. The PNT was a bit overgrown, so our legs and feet got soaked. It is hard to complain though when the trail is overgrown with blueberries, huckleberries, and wildflowers. Last year the PCT was closed for about 5 miles north and 15 miles south of Holman Pass due to a fire, so we had to do a long detour around the closure. It was a good excuse to get back out to the PCT to walk those miles and reminisce! We hung our backpacks in a tree at Holman Pass to keep the bears and mice out. We then walked north to Woody Pass, where the detour ended last year, and back. The views on that stretch were amazing! When we got back to Holman Pass, we grabbed our packs and continued south. We saw some burned areas from the fire last year. Tonight we are camped on a ridge with a 360° view of the mountains around us thanks to a nice guy we met on the PNT. He used to be a Forest Ranger in this area and suggested we schlep water uphill for a campsite with a view of Devil’s Backbone, a neat jagged, rocky peak. We are happy we took his advice! We also met lots of PCT thruhikers finishing their thruhike today. Blueberry recognized Tim’s bandanna from last year. She had hiked half of the PCT last year and was finishing the rest this year. We had fun reminiscing with her. In total, we saw 36 people today!
-Renee
Day 3 – 9.7 miles
We had a short hike back to civilization today. We woke up at our beautiful campsite and enjoyed the sunrise and coffee. Then we got to hiking and took a few stops on the way since there were only 9.7 miles to cover. We saw a total of 25 hikers, about half of whom were PCT hikers bound for Canada. About 15 minutes after getting to Hart’s Pass, the highest road in Washington, we got picked up for our first hitch of the day: Lou and his dog Willie drove us down to Mazama Village and Highway 20. 5-10 minutes later, Kyle picked us up and drove us West over the mountains and into the town of Darrington. We got a snack there, and about 5 minutes after we started hitching again Michael picked us up and drove us all of the way to Renee’s sister’s apartment in Seattle. The hitching was very successful, and the conversations with our hosts were interesting. In total we hitched for six hours and covered a lot of ground. What a great way to travel!
-Tim
