Cascade Pass Hike

Yesterday, Julie, Gail, Kevin and I hiked up Cascade Pass. It is around 7 1/2 miles and 1800 ft elev gain and has to be one of the best hikes in Washington. The views are spectacular, even at the trail head. Lots of people on the trail, but nothing like it would have been on the weekend. We saw a marmot and a few chipmunks, mountains, glaciers, indian paintbrush, heather, and more. The hike is great in that it gains the elevation at a steady pace so no really steep sections. At the top, we had to negotiate a couple of snow sections but Kevin kicked in steps for us. It was a wonderful day in the northwest.

Hex Mountain Hike

Julie and I tried a new hike a couple of weekends ago. Hex Mountain which is near Salmon La Sac. The hike was about 6 miles and 1500 ft elev gain. Since this hike was on the east side of the mountains, I was expecting it to be a scorcher. Luckily, we had a nice breeze on most of the way up and at the top the wind was really howling. It was a beautiful hike with a 360 degree view at the top. We could see Mt Rainier, Cle Elum Lake, Ingalls/Stewart range and the range near Snoqualmie Pass. There was rumor that the trail was used by motorcycles and while we did see the tracks we never saw any motorcycles. In fact, the only people we saw on the trail was one other group of four people that we passed on our way down almost at the trail head. So we had the hike all to ourselves which is always great.