The North Cascades are justifiably famous as a summer hiking Mecca. Emerald green meadows and carpets of wildflowers make for idyllic wandering beneath blue skies. But in autumn, the color scheme changes and the high country is ablaze with warmer hues of red and gold, orange and magenta, yellow and purple. At this time of the year, hikers can feast …

Each summer there are a few weeks when Skyline Divide may be the most beautiful place on earth. It is at this time – the apex of summer – that the wildflower gardens carpeting the Divide burst forth in a display of alpine color that is among the best in the North Cascades. The trail meanders along the ridge, offering …

I’ve hiked pretty much the entire Olympic coast and can say without reservation that my favorite spot on this beautiful coastline is Shi-Shi Beach and Point of Arches. The Point of Arches is the dramatic highlight, thrusting out into the Pacific from the south end of the beach. On a spring backpacking trip, I was fortunate enough to enjoy several …

More than one hundred million acres. This is the quantity of designated wilderness lands in the United States of America today. This bounty is the result of the Wilderness Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964. The Act defines “wilderness” in language unusually poetic for legislation: “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where …

  The towering headlands, crowned with mist, Their feet among the billows, know That Ocean is a mighty harmonist                                               – William Wordsworth There’s something about spending days and nights beside the sea. Maybe it’s the invigorating wind that blows across it, unhindered for 5,000 miles. Perhaps it’s the rhythm of the waves, like a heartbeat, slowing the pulse and …

This was our third attempt to explore the Olympic Mountains in mid-winter. The first two tries had been thwarted by storms and we had ended up on the beach instead. Not this time. After procuring our permits at the Wilderness Info Center in Port Angeles, we drove up the Hurricane Ridge Road in a thick fog, emerging above the cloud …

The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of only one thing and one thing only.  – Joseph Wood Krutch As always, the process of choosing a destination was a struggle. We had finagled a weekend where our party of five could all get away together for …

People cross-country ski all over the country. Even in New Jersey. But few are fortunate enough to have – at their ready disposal – scenery on anything close to the magnitude that we enjoy here in the northwest corner of these United States. These blessings should be counted. The destinations that radiate from the Mount Baker Highway are sufficient to …

A group of intrepid volunteers spent this past summer restoring the classic Mebee Pass Lookout, located in the Okanogan National Forest west of Mazama, WA. The 80-year old lookout structure (abandoned by the Forest Service 60 years ago) had been saved from total collapse in 2002 by Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) members Barry George, Doug McKeever and Jerry Huddle, …

When a freak autumn storm blew in to the Cascades, dumping snow and packing winds in excess of 50 MPH, our long-anticipated eight day backpacking trip to the Enchantment Lakes was suddenly not looking like such a great idea. After a series of long-distance phone calls and a flurry of e-mails, we shifted direction and headed to the Canadian Rockies, …