The Washington State Hiking Podcast

Best hikes for Early Summer in Washington State

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Craig Romano • Episode 65

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Jennie, welcome to the Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host. Jennie Thwing Flaming, and I'm your co host. Craig Romano, Craig and I are happy to have you here. 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. Hey, Craig, here we are at the early part of fake summer, right? You know, I've been in the Northwest for Well, boy, 30. I'll be 36 years in June. Holy cow. So um, I kind of get an idea of the patterns in the seasons. You know, the snow levels, of what we can usually get away with around this time of year. Yes, yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, the last year around this time, we did a hike about, or a episode about best hikes for June. And I think this year we decided to, like shake that up a little bit and make it early summer, which is the same as June. You know, people who've been here in Washington for a long time know that in western Washington, it is not summer till July 5. And in the alpine areas, you know, many of our trails still have snow through mid or even late July. And so summer comes late. If you're in eastern Washington, summer comes early. It's already, already getting really hot. And you know, sometimes we have hot days in May and June. But that doesn't really change the fact that there's still quite a bit of snow, even in a lower snow year in these Alpine places. So I think everybody, what Craig and I wanted to talk about today is like, if you're ready for big view Alpine summer hikes with awesomeness, but you're like, what, there's still snow. Um, we're going to talk about some places that typically, um, are accessible and snow free by early summer, um, or maybe late spring, depending on how you think about it. So um, Craig, what are some of your favorites? Okay, first of all, um, if you don't mind, if you live in Spokane, this is close and you don't mind a long drive, so you want to spend some time the kettle River Range is a great place. Yep, early season, um, again, you're going to be up high, six, 7000, feet, lofty, you know, lofty mountains, great views. Uh, My only caveat for early summer for two things, one, ticks, the ticks are going to be out. So you want to be be aware of that. We don't have to deal with that in the fall. In the fall. And I think I've mentioned this in the past. Unlike the Cascades, the rainy season in the kennels is June. You get a lot of rain in June, and you get thunderstorms over there too, but you get generally long, I mean that long daylight and warm, warm weather, but not excessively hot. They'll come later in the summer. It's a great time of year to be over there. Such a great time of year that last year, in June, we did a whole episode about the kettles. So go back and listen to that one if you want more more kettles. Range ideas, I agree with you. Great spot, Craig. Okay. What else now, if you live in the Portland area, or Portland, Vancouver, or you don't mind traveling again, you know, we've talked about the gorge a lot gorgeous, lots of waterfalls. Yeah, this is not the great time for waterfalls. That was earlier. You want views. And one of the best places for views is the Silver Star scenic area right outside of Vancouver. Silver Star is amazing. It's in my 100 classic hikes. It is half the 30 miles from downtown Vancouver. It's 4500 feet this peak. It all burned during the alcohol burn. So not only have you, I mean, stand on this thing and you see volcanos. You see Mount Jefferson, Mount Hood, you know, Mount Rainier, Mount St Helens, Mount Adams. You see the Portland, Vancouver area, but also wildflowers. It's going to be one of the earliest places you're going to get wildflowers, and some of the best wildflowers showing not only in in that area, but in the entire state. Yeah, if you've never been to Silver Star, that's a great, great area. But there's other places in the gorge too that you can get up high. There's the Monte Cristo, Monte Carlo area, which are don't see a fraction of the crowds. And again, I have all this covered in my new day hiking Columbia River Gorge second edition book with all I was just going to say, Craig, that you should if you want to go deeper on more awesome hikes for this time of year in the gorge, get Craig's book and or go back and listen to our episode from April 2024 where we talked about this more in depth, because same thing in Trapper Creek, wilderness observation peak is another good these are all generally snow free by Memorial Day. So yeah, you can get a jump on those areas. So those are some of my favorite early season. But even I live in the north. Cascades, and you think most of the of the east side is going to it's going to melt earlier. If you're looking for hikes in North Cascades that you don't mind, you're not going to get the super views. Just getting out on Ross Lake, on the east side trail and on thunder Creek are great early season hikes. You'll see mountains surrounding you. You're not going to get Alpine, but they're they're nice early season hikes. Yes, for sure. Oh, and Sir, Jennie will talk about the Olympics. You probably have some of the same ideas. But I should also mention one other area, in the in the Cascades, getting actually far from Seattle, very close to live, Wenatchee in the lake Wenatchee area, two sure bets for early season. Again, you're looking at South exposure, where snow is going to melt out. One is dirty face peak, which is right over Lake Wenatchee. Yeah, hike that in May. I was usually a couple patches of snow, great views. And the other one in Mason Ridge is the Alpine lookout that will be melted out by then. And it, you know, that can be really, really hot later in the summer, in early in May, June, it's really nice. Great views of Lake Bonacci, great views of, you know, so many peaks around you. And also, there's an added bonus that almost always there will be mountain goats on that summit. So, all right, mountain goats. Mountain Goats are always wonderful. Well, for me, there are a couple different areas, sort of, aside from the places that you already mentioned, Craig, that are awesome. One would be, you know, in the Olympic Mountains, there's still a lot of snow. So I don't want to make this like a blanket statement about the entire Olympic mountain range, because that similar to other alpine areas in Washington, you've definitely got places with snow till July, but one place that's typically pretty snow free early in the season is Hurricane ridge. And you know, we've talked about hurricane Ridge before, but you know, you can do something simple, like go up to hurricane Hill, which is shorter, but still has amazing views. And there are also many longer hikes that start from Hurricane ridge or go up to hurricane ridge, and that is typically an area that by Memorial Day, either there isn't snow or there's like patches that are pretty easy to get around, so I think that's one of my go tos if I'm really feeling ready for a summer big view hike. But it's like, I know we've talked we've talked about this mountain in the past, but it's one of the best because of its position being the farthest northeast in the Olympics, over 6000 feet. Mount Townsend. Mount town you can get into Mount Townsend by Memorial Day, there'll be some snow a little bit, not much. And again, the first flowers are going to start coming out. This is a great choice if you're itching to climb a real mountain. June has beautiful rhododendrons along that first, like, mile and a half of the mount Townsend trail I have in, like, June encountered snow. There is it windy camp. It's like, where there's that, like, when you do that hike, there's like, there's kind of a flat area where there's, like, a campsite next to a lake. Sometimes there's some snow that you have to navigate through there, but you could check on WTA trip reports and, like, see if that's currently the situation. But yeah, I agree with you. Mount Townsend is great. And the other place, I know we've talked about this in patents, it's a wonderful hike. You can do a loop. It's the mount Mueller area that will be snow free. It's lower, it's only it's three and a half 1000 feet north between Snyder Ridge, that whole area, and I think, can't remember, mentioned, I love Snyder ridge. It's great. I was just up there last year, and unfortunately, it's not getting maintenance, so be prepared for that. But Mueller still in great shape. There's several loops you can do. There's the new Divide Trail for a shorter loop, or do the whole thing the views of Crescent Lake or lake crescent. It's just amazing from up there. It's fantastic. That's that is a great hike to do early in the season. It will, it will be snow free in May. So, I mean, many years it's snow free in April. So, and the flowers, again, early in the summer, you're gonna get a great flower showing there. Yeah, one other place over in the Olympics I wanted to just mention, before move on, is striped peak. So I it's not in the park. It's not in an alpine area, it's in salt Creek County Park, right? I recently did that hike for the first time, and nice one. Yeah, it doesn't have to be summer. I mean, you can do that hike in the winter. Most of the time it's snow free, but, um, that view is pretty remarkable. And I was there on a pretty rainy, cloudy day, and it was still a pretty great view. So I can only imagine on a clear, sunny day, all the way. Down the Strait of Juan de Fuca past pillar point. It is me. You know, this is one of the hikes that, for many, many years, it was just an okay hike. And now WTA developed this new loop that goes into the peak. And in my new Olympic book that will be out later on this year, I have it, as you know, one of the best hikes in the area. It is spectacular. You can get car camp at that Columb county park there and make this loop. You can hike down to a beach with a waterfall. It has definitely become one of the better hikes on the peninsula. Yeah, I agree, absolutely okay. And then I guess the last kind of area I wanted to talk about, which you touched on a little bit already. Craig is just kind of the East, eastern side, or east of the crest of the Cascade Mountains. So this would be hikes around places like cleol and Wenatchee and Lake Chelan. You know, where it gets very, very hot, starting very soon, but there is kind of this window early in the season, again on the east side. So I'm not talking about really deep into Eastern Washington. We're talking about still Alpine here, but because you're on the east side of the crest, and it's much drier and it gets hot sooner the snow melts out a lot earlier than it does just a few miles away. You know, in places around like snow, call me pass or Stevens Pass or white pass. So anyway, a couple favorites. There's lots of great hikes there, but a couple that I would just call out that are like, you want to feel like you're on a big summer Alpine adventure. One would be hex mountain near cleoleum. That's a tough for me. That's a tough hike, but it's beautiful. It's going to be snow free early or and then another one would be Chelan Butte or elephant head. It's the same trail. It's just like how elephant head is kind of a cool viewpoint that gives you, like a shorter hike than going all the way up to the top of Chelan Butte, but again, brutal heat in the summer, kind of when I the last time I did that hike, which was a couple years ago. It was the first few days of June, and the wildflowers were actually still quite good. They were, they were definitely starting to fade as it was getting, starting to get hot. But it, yeah, it was, it was pretty cool. And I think any other hikes in those areas would be great. Those were just a couple that came to my mind, yeah, consider it's in the Wenatchee or electrons and Ridge, yeah, which is pretty high. And June's a good time. It's gonna be brutally hot in the summertime, so it's a good time. It's, it'll be, it'll be melted out. And the added bonus, you're not gonna see very many people on either Lillian mount. Lillian's another one you can do, yeah, through Haney. Yeah. Those are good in June. And then, if you don't mind a really far drive, unless you live in Wenatchee or in that area and you want to backpack, because one of the best places at the farthest extreme of the North Cascades, it's going to be melted out by June is the whole horseshoe basin area in the pase and wilderness. You know, if the roads clear to get in there. I've been in there in June to backpack. And you could summit 8000 foot peaks that time of year, saying the Loomis State Forest, which is right next to it, chippaca and some of those other chippeka and some of those other peaks in the skier in the Loomis. It's a spectacular area that borders the st wilderness. There's wolf packs there. You're right on the British Columbia border. The views you can look into straight down six, 7000 feet into the Similkameen River. Absolutely stunning if you've never been there. So late June, mid, late June is a great time to be in there. Yeah, watch incredible flowers again. Be mindful the ticks. Better than that. It's a good time to be there. Yeah, absolutely. And we'll, we'll do another episode in like mid July to talk more about these, like, mid and late summer hikes that are still snowy right now, so that is coming very soon. If you're enjoying the podcast, we would love to have you leave us a rating or review wherever you're listening that will really help other people find us. And don't forget, there's a link to Craig's books and my email list in the show notes, if you'd like to connect with us and support us further, and you can always leave us a tip in the show notes. All right, bye for now, everybody. All right. Happy Trails. Everyone. You.

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Jennie Thwing Flaming

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Craig Romano

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