Seattle Forrest

A good friend told me "you haven't lived until you've been to Harts Pass" years ago, and she was right. I've been in love with the place ever since. I've wanted to ride my bike up there ever since, and now that I have a bike that can handle dirt and gravel roads, I've gone up twice to scope it out and plan. Truth is I'm a little intimidated. If anybody has any thoughts on how to approach the ride, I'm all ears.

The obvious starting point is at the Mazama store, the valley floor at 2,206 feet; the road ends on top of Slate Peak at 7,488 feet. The first 10 miles are paved and rolling, then it's a 13 mile dirt climb. Most of the steepest parts are toward the end of the road, where there's no shade. Best views on a bluebird day, but that means the sun will be strong; very few year-round creeks to fill my bottles. I'm thinking about driving up in advance, caching water bottles in the bushes, marking them in my GPS, then driving back afterward to collect the bottles. Sounds like a hassle. Also thinking about waiting for the larches to turn in October to deal with the heat/scenery, but then I'm concerned about day length.

Anyway on to the pics. If it sounds like a brutal ride, these will show why anybody would want to do something like that.

You can see the road going through a burn zone in this one:



Tatie Peak:



Shangri La?







West Fork Methow Valley - the trail down there allows bikes, and it's lovely:



Everything's better with a snowball in your hand.

trailangel

Frickin' Beatiful!

Seattle Forrest

Here are a few pics from a night I spent on Slate Peak, at the end of the road.

Sunset



Moonset



Night

B. Carfree

Awesome photos again. Thanks for putting them up. They're almost, but not quite, enough to drag me out of my coast hills for some Cascade fun.

Kip

That ride just made my bucket list.
Thanks.

Seattle Forrest

I spent Saturday hiking and scrambling to a sekrit place in the North Cascades. Anybody wishing to see the larch show, be advised the alpines are peaking this week. If you have a road bike, you can see them along and above SR-20 from Cabinet Creek to somewhere beyond Washington Pass. If you have a mountain bike, the Cutthroat Pass trail is the place to be.













I'm in the next two.

Kip

Great photos, thanks! We're headed to Leavenworth this weekend and expect to see some Larch in their fall colors going over Blewett Pass.