Cascadian Fall

Washington, "The Evergreen State" is not exactly famous for its fall colors. 

In fact - no one has ever told me I should see fall in the Cascades.

For better or worse, I don't always do what people tell me to.

I became aware of fall here via the same avenue that's inspired just about all of my personal WA hiking - Kyle Mcrohan.

I quickly learned from Kyle that the attractions were not just golden larches, but also multi-colored tundra mosaics.

I had ravenously consumed much of Kyle's blog before even arriving in Washington in 2024, but in the past two summers I never managed to stay long enough to see foliage change beyond the ornamental maples near my warehouse:

Variable weather reduces my WA work volume in late September, while the opportunity to earn money at home in Grand Canyon increases.

But I'm never ready. Call me crazy, but I prefer the risk of some fresh powder in the most vibrant mountain season to 100-degree heat.

September 14-17th, I visited the Stuart Range. Snow dusted the high cold plateau, but it was still too early.

A habituated white-crowned sparrow asking for food at Heather Pass.

Day 1: Starting Slow

But it wasn't October yet.

The parking lot is paved for over a hundred cars, but the only other person we saw was an old man with a tripod. He was a local who had been photographing the ice cave routinely for many years - he said this is the smallest he's ever seen it.

Then we headed to check out the NF Sauk Falls - no fall colors here, but it was a chill walk on our way.

We stopped at the Whitechuck to admire the mixing water colors. I've put-in for boating here five times but it was looking low!

I stopped to show her our friends' property near Darrington, where I've spent many days. Then it started raining, and we spent most of the afternoon at Moe's in town.

Joelle hadn't done back-to-back big days of hiking since her ankle injury, so we planned on being okay with chill days like the first two.

But now it was time to start getting after it! We woke to slowly clearing skies at Diablo Lake, which was remarkably not-teal.

We began the day with a walk up Thunder Knob trail.

I continued to be surprised at how generic Diablo Lake looked, but clearing views of a freshly plastered Pyramid more than made up for it.

We didn't linger in the park complex long though. The best trails near and above treeline lie further east on highway 20.

It was mid-Saturday, and hundreds of parked cars at Rainy Pass compelled us to keep driving east to pull-out on the east side of Washington Pass, we were only the second vehicle.

Joelle hadn't done much off-trail hiking since her injury. Kangaroo Pass is not an official trail, but I had read it was okay. With the other hikes crowded, we decided to try it. The hike began with intermittent fields of large boulders, the least-favorite terrain of her ankle. But eventually we broke out into a meadow:

The larches in this area were lemon-lime. I hoped we'd get to see them fully golden, but knew we might be too early.

Oh well!

The little plants were the stars of the show today.

But we still found some gems :)

We drove all the way out to Hart's Pass to camp and do more hiking the next day. It was cold! Woohoo!

I spend most of my time in Washington guiding below treeline and paddling rivers. As a result, I find myself missing the sky dearly.

Being able to car camp at 7000ft with a full moon was a treat!

It became very windy overnight, but I pulled myself out of bed and walked up to Slate lookout for sunrise. Luckily there were good windbreaks.

Being so far east, views from this area are best lit in the morning. Larchy ridges and painted tundra led to views of distant peaks....

...like Snowfield.

The terrain and flora to the south looked inspiring, so with many options we decided to hike the PCT in that direction.

After a few miles we reached this saddle with a grove of truly jaw-dropping colors.

A couple more miles brought us to another stunning saddle across from Azurite.

Maple Pass probably is the qunintessential Cascadian fall dayhike. It's extremely popular, and we were glad to avoid the weekend.

Miles of trail near and above treeline, blue lakes, heck, even the name conjured up scenes in my imagination not just of larches, but of groves of orange and red.

We slept at the trailhead and got a somewhat early start to beat some crowds. It lived up to my expectations.

What I did not expect, was to find absolutely no maples.

Dakobed might look best from the north!

We stopped to eat at the top, surrounded by people, but managed to stay focused on admiring this view:

A fresh dusting, a postglacial lake and wrinkled moraine, with larches covering the bench below.

One last view of GP and Dome, for now...

Almost full yellow!

Another hungry sparrow kept us company.

By now we had hiked three good days in a row - totalling around 30 miles and 6k gain. With rain in the forecast, we thought this would be a good day to give Joelle's ankle a break. But it didn't seem to need one. 

This far east, it began to seem like the rain would be very light. We decided to drive back up into the mountains and attempt our backpacking idea in the southern Chelan Sawtooth range.

After reading that this high and cold range has early-changing larches, I stumbled upon this itinerary myself while perusing the map for high trailheads, lakes, and loops. It seemed ideal, especially since starting today would give us two nights. 

As we neared the alpine, the larches began to dominate the forest. And they were yellow! Very yellow!

Beauty through the fog.

It was very cold, so we quickly found our camp and layered up. After a long warm summer, we knew we wanted to be able to enjoy being outside in the cold on this trip, so we had plenty of insulation.

There was still a large cloud to the east, but I managed to get myself out of bed just in time to catch the sun blasting under it.

This has to be one of the most beautiful mountain scenes I've ever seen.

Still not over the foreground foliage!

Reflections are Joelle's favorite! We came to the right place.

Geared up and ready to go! Luckily we get to stay in paradise all day.

After cresting our first pass, we dropped through granite talus to Boiling Lake

The gentle trail contoured through forests and meadows before beginning the final "Angel Staircase" climb

At the top of the ridge, we sat for a long time and looked at the view. A light haze made for poor photos, but I was amazed how far we could see. 

It felt like we were just on the edge of the most incredible part of the Cascades. Tahoma emerged in the south, where we'd hiked two years ago. Countless glaciated peaks like Daniel, Dakobed, Dome, and Eldorado were identifiable. Barely visible behind a dry ridge was Kushan, Mt. Baker.

Enjoying the cool weather in the alpine!

Endless ridges...

Eventually it was time to drop down camp at Cooney Lake, where the sun set early.

We set up on a granite peninsula surrounded by larches.

A full moon made for good evening scenery as we said goodnight to September.

We woke up early to enjoy the morning at Cooney.

Sadly, we couldn't linger long. Today we had to hike nine miles out and make good progress on the long drive to Moab.

Amazing how happy we we've been over just a bunch of leaves.