The Washington State Hiking Podcast

The Best Hiking Summer Vacations in Washington State

• Jennie Thwing Flaming and Craig Romano • Episode 68

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Jennie Flaming:

Jennie, welcome to the Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host. Jennie Thwing Flaming,

Craig Romano:

and I'm your co host, Craig Romano, Craig

Jennie Flaming:

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, summertime.

Craig Romano:

It is summer. I absolutely love summer in the northwest. It's pretty great. Yes, it is the best time to be

Jennie Flaming:

here. So today we're talking about summer hiking vacations in Washington State. So and then in the near future, we're going to talk about hiking vacations that are immediately around us, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia. But for today, we're sticking at home. Um, so the places that come to mind for me when I think of like in Washington summer vacations, the first two things that come to my mind are Lake Chelan and the Washington coast, like super and, of course, there's lots of other great places, but what comes to mind for you as far as those destinations,

Craig Romano:

not those places? No, definitely, definitely not. Chelan is hot and crowded and it is, it is, and the coast is foggy. It is. I love the coast during the spring and fall, so I don't go there in the summertime though. Chelan the other end of the lake is a place that comes to mind, but I usually don't go there in the summer either. So I tend to think of in the summertime places that are kind of they might not come. They might not be what most people think. As far as destination towns, I like to stay away from crowds. I don't like the big hype, but I need a little trail town that's going to give me the amenities that I need, which is usually a nice place or two to stay, some decent restaurants and, of course, access to great trails.

Jennie Flaming:

What are those places for you? Please

Craig Romano:

pack wood Republic. But those are places that definitely come, come to my mind or sounds. They are, they are actually closer to more popular ones. Matter of fact, you were mentioning one of the ones, like Chelan. Of course, people love Leavenworth, which is just an absolute Zoo. I don't stay in Leavenworth either. I stay in Wenatchee. I prefer Wenatchee, but I don't go there in the summertime, either it's too hot, but it's definitely one of the places I look it's one of my favorite hiking destinations as we get later into the season or early in the season. Absolutely love Wenatchee as a base. I completely

Jennie Flaming:

agree with you about that for first spring and fall. And I think people listening to this podcast probably already know that Leavenworth is a really, but they still don't need to talk about that one, right? Young Bear said nobody

Craig Romano:

ever goes there anymore because it's too popular or something to that. You know, I need to know my Yogi isms, you know, yes, yes, yes, yes. But you know, if you can get through Leavenworth, if you're coming from Seattle, definitely, Wenatchee has, like I've said, many fine hotels sustain at a lot, lot cheaper rates and really good restaurants, and a lot of very good, authentic restaurants too, that aren't necessarily catering to tourists. They're catering to the folks. Yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah. Totally agree with that. Wenatchee is awesome. I agree with you that it's a bit hot for me in the summer, along with Yakima, the Tri Cities that I think are super underrated hiking destinations in Washington, but not for summer. So we'll, height of summer Exactly. Yes, we'll, we'll, maybe that's something we can talk about more in the fall. Is some of those, those spots, um, you know one other place that's super popular, of course, for summer vacations, is the San Juan Islands. Yeah, of course. You know, we have talked before about some of the awesome hikes up in the islands. And again, that's a place that is very busy and popular and expensive and crowded, yes. But if you are going to the San Juan's this summer. You know, definitely check out Turtleback mountain on orcas or mount. And I put that in quotes because it's more like a hill Finley sun on San Juan Island. Or also, Lopez has some great hikes. So if you are out there, there are some great hikes. And I agree with you about Chelan. Chelan, in the summer, is a water destination, not a hiking one. Again, amazing for spring and fall. I would love to talk for a moment about stahengan Greg, because I think even though, again, you. Go there year round. I think that people often forget about stahengan as an option. Do you have if you were going to go there in summer, which I know you're not, what is your favorite hike to do there in summer?

Craig Romano:

Oh, boy. And that's the thing, because there are great hikes to do there in the summertime, but they're really, really difficult. The thing is, there's great hikes you can do there year round, but there's, there's also several hard hikes you can only do in the summertime, and McAllister McGregor. McGregor peak is one of them. It's probably the, the hardest hike in there. There's also purple pass, purple Creek, which was affected by fire. So you know, you might not be but here again, I just gotta back up. I've been to steak, and several times, absolutely, I've never been in the summertime. I've been there in the wintertime. It's unbelievable. The winter and in the fall is the best. But if you are planning on going to steak and right now this year, forget about it, because everything's taken so start planning for next year. You need, you need to for summer. You mean, yeah, I remember booking for September in February. Yeah, there's only a limited amount of places to stay there for camping and cabins, and so you really need to make those reservations, but, but, yeah, you can hike everything in the summer there. It does get hot in the valley there, but, but it's unlike Chelan on the other on the other side, it's forested in there. So it's going to cool down a little bit a little bit more, you know, and then you can actually, there's, there's you can go up the valley, up higher in the valley, and along the river, and it's lots of cool spots. So if it is hot, you can cool down the river. Certainly cool down the lake. Lots of great hikes that you can do there. But, but the hardcore stuff is, is definitely summer, because you're not going to be able to get up up McGregor and purple pass and same thing going over to Goody and a lot of those good a lot of those areas, yeah, you can't do those in the wintertime or the spring,

Jennie Flaming:

right, right? You know, one other thing I wanted to mention, just to defend the Washington coast for a moment, no, I love the Washington No, I know it is, but sometimes that is a huge benefit, right? Like I have definitely, and I know you like hot weather more than I do. I'm

Craig Romano:

heading to Florida next week, and we were doing the city, yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

but there are definitely days if it has been really hot in Seattle and you don't have air conditioning, and you're like over it, you can even just take a day trip out to the coast. And I have been there several times in the middle of summer, like end of July, when it was like 90 in Seattle, or nine, even hotter than that, and it like remains 90 until you're like a mile from the coast, and then it's like 50, yeah, or 60 when you get there, and foggy. So if you don't want that, don't go to the Washington coast in the middle of summer. But if you do, if you're looking for a place that's pretty reliably cool. Um, not always, but almost always. Like, definitely,

Craig Romano:

it's rare that that for it to be warm there, you basically have to have no wind or or the prevailing winds for it from the other side, because it's it's cool because of those constantly cool waters. Um, but no, it's funny. You mentioned that. I haven't. I remember years in the past going there in June on some really hot day, and just it is. It's an air conditioner out there. It really is. And you will get days that's not foggy. Sometimes. The trouble is, and this is where people on those really hot days, when you've got water that's 50 degrees and it's really hot, it's going to create fog. And that's why I love about the fall and spring, because the air in the water are pretty equal in temperature, and then you get some, matter of fact, September, later summer, I've had some of my best hikes on the Washington coast. That's a wonderful time to be there. It's still pretty warm, and you get rid of that fog. Great time of year to be there.

Jennie Flaming:

I totally agree. Okay, well, let's talk about these three places that you recommended Craig for, like, summer vacations in Washington to focus on hikes. So let's start with Cle Elum. I mean, some of those hikes are a little busy, but not as much as, like, the snow call me pass ones, right?

Craig Romano:

You get a little and it is hotter. And I do like, Yeah, I do like heat, but it cools down at night. But if you don't, I mean, clayland, you've got some nice places to stay there. You've got some nice restaurants, and you've got access to San luisac up that area. You've got access to the tea away. All great, great summer hikes. You know, of course, you can always camp up in these valleys too. But if you want to stay in a town and have the amenities, and was only an hour and a half from Seattle too, I mean, it's a really quick getaway. So if you just want to go up there for one night, really, you know, I like the town. The it's a historic town. I like that. Jennie, you know, I'm going to throw this to it's one of the few towns in Washington that has an Italian hair. Heritage, and a lot of there was a lot of Italian immigrants that came out there to work in the mines. So with that said, there's some good Italian restaurants in that area. So, so that's nice too. Yeah, you can eat well,

Jennie Flaming:

yes, yes. What's your favorite hike for, like, summer in the Cleveland area? Well,

Craig Romano:

anything that's in the Tiananmen. The tianan was great, you know, to get up there. You know, I'm, of course, like Lake ingles. None of those. I like those in the fall. Yeah. Navajo is a great hike. The flowers are really nice up there, yeah. Esmeralda basin is another one. Great flower. We can do some nice loops up there, in that area, too. Same thing going up to up sam lasak. It gives you access to some really good hikes that again, early in the summertime, they're going to be difficult to get to getting into like deep lake and Cathedral Rock and places like that, tuck and Robin lakes all the the trouble with using Cleome as a base to go that far is that road is horrendous. And so if you're only going up at once, that's great, but if you're planning on going back and forth, you're probably gonna want to camp up there somewhere. Because, yeah, that road is awful. Yeah, it really is. The same with sack itself. It's good. It's all paved. But beyond that, yes,

Jennie Flaming:

when you get on that, yeah, I know, yeah, I know exactly what you

Craig Romano:

mean. But you know, you can get up to Thorpe mountain, and some of those are great, uh, shorter hikes that you can get into. So, yeah, it's a nice space, yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

um, one that I really love, that I discovered in the last few years is Easton ridge. Have you done Eastern ridge? Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, I did that hike a couple years ago on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. It was sunny, everything was super busy, and there was one other car parked there, and I saw two people all day on that trail. The one thing that I will say about I loved that hike. So if you're looking to get away from crowds, it's a great option. I mean, in mid summer, it's going to be very, very hot, yeah, um, but it is. It is only, you know, like half the hike is in the forest. So it isn't quite as bad as one where you're like, completely exposed all day, but it still was pretty hot and beautiful wildflowers, amazing views. The one other thing I will say is that, you know, not a very heavily traveled trail. I believe I counted 54 blowdowns, yeah, yeah. So that got a little old, but it

Craig Romano:

was for solitude, too,

Jennie Flaming:

exactly. And then one other thing I will tell you, if, if you're folks listening, if you're going to hike it, there is one section for about half a mile that is extremely steep, right? You get to that and you're going to be like, Are you kidding me? This is, like, the steepest hike I've ever done in Washington, but it's that section is short, right? The whole hike isn't like that most of it. And when you get up on the ridge, there's almost no elevation gain or loss for like a couple miles. So if you can get through that, and if you look at the map, you can see that, you can see that that steep part is really short, but it is pretty brutal, and it has a lot of rocks and roots just in that one section. But it's a great hike. Yeah. Okay. Well, what about what about Packwood? Backwards? You know, actually, will you just say where pack wood is? I bet there are some people listening who don't know

Craig Romano:

it's on highway 12. That's the White Pass Road right on the college River, south side of Mount Rainier. Matter of fact, here's the great thing about pack wood. Pack was pretty small, but there's actually, there's actually a couple of decent hotels. And there are no, you know, you're not going to any of the big name ones, but there's, there's a couple of hotels that I that that are definitely good family, clean, really nice to stay at. And then there's some rougher accommodations too, if you care for and some camping. And here's the great thing about Packwood, is that you are minutes to Mount Rainier National Park your your minutes to the goat rocks in the north part of the goat rock doing this, and you're not that far from St Helens either. I've actually used pack wood as a base for the northern part of Mount St Helens. So you've got this access to three great areas if you don't feel like roughing it. So again, if you're planning on staying here, I would make those reservations early because there are only a few places to stay there. There's some cabins. So you can probably check out some Airbnbs and things like that as well. And you also, you're really close to to White Pass, again, getting up higher. So you can, you have access into the the William O Douglas wilderness, the South Side. Basically, you have access from a lot of areas with from like a half hour to one hour drive. Yeah, great place to base out

Jennie Flaming:

of, yeah. And a lot of those areas not Mount Rainier National Park, but the others are not super busy, even in mid summer, exactly. And man. That section of the PCT that goes north from white pass around those lakes, that is a really beautiful area,

Craig Romano:

gorgeous. And the other I've done that in the wintertime too, because it's actually really safe, yeah, to do in the winter because you're not an avalanche country and you have a plowed road, you go right off of white pass, and you can go up to of course, those lakes are going to look like frozen meadows in the winter, but it's, you know, in its springtime. So you're gonna be sober. The fall is wonderful up there as well. You get lots of color. That is, you know, I live up in Skagit, so far away, but when I was in Seattle, many, many years ago, I was definitely spending more time in Packwood. I definitely like, Yeah, I like that area as a base, yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

yeah, for sure. Okay, so the last one we're going to talk about is Republic, right? Republic is awesome. I'm sure most people in Washington have never heard of Republic, so tell everybody. Well, I'll tell everybody where it is, then you could talk about. Okay, so Republic is like North East Washington. So it's like between Wenatchee and Spokane, but North Yep, right. So it's along Highway 20. So that is a super cool Washington Road Trip. Is to go, like, across the North Cascades, but like, take Highway 20 all the way across the state, across it's fantastic. And

Craig Romano:

there's drives in the state

Jennie Flaming:

so many other than Winthrop and twist and Mazama. There's just there. These are places there are not very many visitors, and not that many hikers. And I, you know, just to to, like, reiterate that point, I had a job, um, early in my career, where we traveled all over Washington, state and Republic was kind of the only area of Washington I didn't go to in that job, if that tells you anything. So I had to visit, visit later on my own, but it was awesome. So, Craig, can you talk a little bit about some of your favorite hikes there?

Craig Romano:

Yeah, so you mentioned, because you're talking about Winthrop and all, that's a great thing, you know, I take, I live in Skagit, so I take Highway 20, all the way across here, but driving through the Methow, it's wonderful. It's crowded all this. You know, it's like you can have it, you know, keep going with your Fauci Western Front. I keep going because it's another, another 100 miles plus beyond, behind the Met how? And here's the thing, if you're not familiar with Northeastern Washington, it doesn't look like Moses Lake. It doesn't look like Vantage it's forested. It actually looks a lot like the Appalachians, except, except the trails are different. You have the kettle river range up there, the Okanagan Highlands. They're, they're Washington's oldest mountains, so but then parts look like Montana. You've got this range country, golden hills, the lower part Republic has a population of just over 1000 it is. It's the county seat of ferry County, which has about seven and a half 1000. People. That's that's a city block in Seattle. It's the entire county. So it's got this wonderful historic vibe. It's an old gold gold mining town. There's actually still active mines there. There's a couple of hotels in town, like three hotels in town, one of them, I can highly recommend, the northern end hotel, some great little restaurants, a little roof up there. There's a, there's a co op. It's kind of in the people that live there. It's, it's a nice eclectic mix of black helicopter types and hippies. So you've got the entire, you know, Gambit there. But no, I mean, the people work hard there. It's very, very friendly. Absolutely love the place. Discovered it many, many years ago. I actually my wife and I got married there. We love the area. So Curlew Lake State Park, which is just outside of Republic, is one of my favorite places to base. If I want to camp, get this gorgeous State Park. You get this beautiful lake and go swimming in paddling, and then you've got a half hour to an hour of all kinds of great hikes. Bring your bicycle. You've got the 30 mile ferry county Rail Trail, which is our room, which is in great shape. I just ran the whole thing last year. Really wonderful shape. So you can basically bicycling, paddling, hiking. It's paradise, and it's not crowded. You're about two and a half hours, two hours from Spokane, so you get more people coming up from that area. Actually surprising. I meet a lot of British Columbians from Nelson in that area, come down to the area too. But again, you won't be dealing with crowds. But because there's limited camping in hotels, definitely make your reservations early. It does get hot there. It can get hot there, but it there, but it also can get cold. Last night was there last August, it was actually cold. And it also can rain in the summertime. The patterns are not the same as the Cascades. Clouds will pick up again over there. So it could be rainy there in the summertime as well. But if you've never been there, it's one of my absolute favorite places. In the state

Jennie Flaming:

it is, I agree, at awesome summer getaway. Love it, yeah, and Curlew Lake is great for camping. I mean, the sky is so dark, it's amazing,

Craig Romano:

yeah, and it's Yeah, imagine that's where my wife and I actually got married, at the State Park. It was the very first place I took her camping back in, oh God, 1996 when we met at the UW so again, and we get married, we celebrate our anniversary at our campsite. And it's kind of interesting. There was a ponderosa pine that was planted there. And watching that tree grow over the years also reminds me of how much older I'm getting to. It's like, Oh my God. You know old guy. I don't know who's gonna hit old growth first, the pioneer me, but yeah,

Jennie Flaming:

I love it. Well, those are some awesome new summer getaway ideas for those of you listening who are looking for something different. All right, we'll see you next

Craig Romano:

week, right? I'll see you out in Republic this summer. Yes, if

Jennie Flaming:

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, and you can always leave us a tip in the show notes you.

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Jennie Thwing Flaming

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Craig Romano

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