The Washington State Hiking Podcast
Welcome to the The Washington State Hiking Podcast with your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming. Along with part time co-host and guidebook author Craig Romano, she provides practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners and potential hikers of all skill and ability levels that is practical, accurate, fun and inclusive. We cover hikes near Seattle and Tacoma as well as hikes all across Washington from the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula to the Shrub Steppe of Eastern Washington.
Jennie is a middle aged, plus sized, frequently solo slow hiker and a born and raised Washingtonian and has enjoyed Washington's trails her entire life. Craig is a trail runner and ultra marathoner who also loves the mellow walk close to home. Originally from New Hampshire, he has made his home in Washington for more than 30 years. He the author of more than 20 guidebooks covering trails across Washington State and beyond.
The Washington State Hiking Podcast
5 Popular Hikes in Washington’s Cascades that are worth a vacation day
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Jennie shares five hikes that are extremely popular and crowded but totally deserve your vacation days for a crowd free experience.
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Lake Ingalls and Headlight Basin
Welcome to The Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming along with my part time co host guidebook author Craig Romano, we provide practical and timely, seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun and inclusive. We would love to hear from you, our listeners the second link in the show notes, right below the tip jar hint. Hint is our voice memo link. Please leave us a voice memo with your question, and we will answer it in a future episode. Hi everyone. Well, here we are at the end of the busiest summer season, here in early October, as you've heard us discuss on this podcast a few times, September and October are actually my favorite months to hike in Washington State. But for sure, our trails are much busier in July and August, but our trails are pretty busy all year long. And so I was reflecting on kind of the close of summer and fall, and I was thinking that I what I would love to share with you is some truly crowded and popular hikes that are amazing and totally worth it and worth taking a vacation day or putting up with crowds. But for me, putting up with crowds is really not something that I want to do. And so I just wanted you to know that these super popular hikes I'm going to talk about five today really are truly amazing and really showcase what is beautiful about Washington's Cascade Mountains. They are all in the Cascade Mountains in various places, and so I wanted to talk about that today. So before I get into that, one thing I wanted to mention is two super crowded hikes in Washington that I think are not worth it. One is Mount s and one is mailbox. So of course, I don't judge anyone for doing whatever hike they want to, but these ones, in addition to being crowded, are not really my favorite. And so yes, they have good views, and yes, you get a good workout, but if you want views or a good workout, there are lots of other places to get that where the hike is much more interesting and less crowded, and we have previous episodes where we talk about that, so starting off with that as a disclaimer. So five hikes that are super, super duper popular and totally worth it. Here we go. So the first one is snow Lake, which is near snow. Call me pass, and if you have been to snow lake or tried to go to snow Lake, you know that this hike is absolutely bananas, especially on summer weekends. But I just did it a couple of weeks ago. It was a weekday, and it was still busy, not crowded, but definitely busy. So if you want to take a Tuesday or Wednesday off in summer or fall for this hike, 100% worth it, despite being I believe the most popular hike in Washington State, I think that is still true. Okay, why is this a great hike? Why is it worth it? Well, first of all, it's beautiful. The lake is beautiful. The mountain views are beautiful. The forest is beautiful. There are some old growth growth trees in the first mile of this trail at the end of September. It has beautiful vine maple colors on the first mile or so of the trail. It's just, it's really beautiful, and it's a classic cascade alpine lake hike. It's about seven miles round trip with about 1700 feet of elevation gain. That's if you go all the way to the lake and you need a Northwest forest pass to park there, it's at the alpentol ski area. Parking Area is where you park. Okay, so that's number one. Snow Lake. Number two is the skyline trail loop at Mount Rainier National Park. And this is one of the most popular, busiest hikes in the park. In 2024 you needed a timed entry permit to get to Paradise in Mount Rainier National Park, which is where this hike starts. So if that's still true going forward, make sure you get one of those permits this you know it's going to be. Bananas, but it won't be so bad and so crowded if you do it on a weekday. Totally worth a vacation day. Wait and make sure you're going to have good views and good weather there. There is even snow on this trail into August sometimes. So if you want it to be as snow free as possible. I would shoot for September, but anytime, starting in mid July, you can get amazing wildflower views, amazing views of the mountain. It's a loop, so that makes it fun. You'll probably see marmots. You'll probably see glaciers up close. It's a really awesome hike. So totally recommend that one number three maple pass. So as we are talking about this today, on October 9, I gotta tell you, this past weekend and coming weekend will be when this hike is really bananas. And by bananas I mean, I'm not sure I've ever seen as crowded of a trail or a parking area as this one on weekends in early October, when the larches are changing. It's also very popular during the summer, but early October is definitely the busiest time on this trail. It's in the North Cascades. It's on the North Cascades highway starts at the rainy pass Trailhead. It's just beautiful. Again, it's a loop. It has amazing views. It touches the edge of North Cascades National Park. The larch trees are spectacular in early October. The wildflowers are spectacular in late July and August. So I would say this is a late summer, early fall hike. It's a long drive from Seattle, so this is or Tacoma, or Everett, or anywhere in that area. So this is a good place to consider camping or staying somewhere there's nowhere right by the trailhead, but you could definitely get closer, but absolutely worth a long drive, the busy day or an overnight trip, and definitely worth a vacation day. Super cool hike. This one has, it's about a seven mile loop with about 2000 feet of elevation gain the if you go around the loop counterclockwise, which is the way most people do it, coming down on the far side of the loop is really steep. So what I sometimes do is go up to kind of the high point and then come back down the way that I came, because I like the more gradual ascent and descent, that makes it a little bit longer, maybe eight miles, to do it that way. But however you want to do it is great. Okay, so speaking of fall colors and larches, another one is Lake Engles or and headlight basin. Now, again, this is a great hike in summer and fall. It's very busy. It's in the 10 away area, so it's just north of cleem, and you can backpack and camp in headlight basin. You can't camp at the lake, but this is one of the, maybe the most beautiful alpine lake in the Cascades. I don't know there's a lot of beautiful ones, but it's it's a wonderful hike, really interesting views the whole way. It's often drier it's on the east side of the crest of the Cascade, so it's a little bit less wet than it is on the west side, which is really nice. It has amazing larches in a headlight basin in early October, wonderful wildflowers in late July and August. September has those like brightly colored turning berry bushes, and it's just a wonderful hike. So this one is, see, it's about 2500 feet of elevation gain. One thing I want to say is that going from headlight basin up to the lake is kind of challenging. It's nine miles round trip if you go to the lake, but it's kind of scrambling at the end, and you're kind of following rocks to see where you're going, so just keep that in mind. But really beautiful. Okay, finally, number five is Lake 22 which is on the mountain loop highway. It's very, very busy. This is an another awesome alpine lake. It's a little more chill than some of the others. It's just a little under six miles round trip, and has about 1500 feet of elevation gain. It has some lovely little creeks. It's a nice shaded forest hike on the way up, which is really wonderful, especially if it's a hot day, great summer or. Early Fall trail. So those are all hikes that I am just telling you. If you go on a weekend, they're going to be really crowded. They are awesome and totally worth a vacation day. So I hope you get out there and enjoy them. See you next time. Bye for now.
