Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Jennie, welcome to the
Washington State hiking podcast.
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I'm your host. Jennie ThwingFlaming, and I'm your co host.
Craig Romano, Craig and I arehappy to have you here. We
provide practical and timely,seasonal hiking advice for
hikers, trail runners andpotential hikers and trail
runners of all skill and abilitylevels that is helpful,
accurate, fun and inclusive.
Hey, Craig, here we are at theearly part of fake summer,
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right? You know, I've been inthe Northwest for Well, boy, 30.
I'll be 36 years in June. Holycow.
So um, I kind of get an idea ofthe patterns in the seasons. You
know, the snow levels, of whatwe can usually get away with
around this time of year. Yes,yeah, definitely. And I think,
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you know, the last year aroundthis time, we did a hike about,
or a episode about best hikesfor June. And I think this year
we decided to, like shake thatup a little bit and make it
early summer, which is the sameas June. You know, people who've
been here in Washington for along time know that in western
Washington, it is not summertill July 5. And in the alpine
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areas, you know, many of ourtrails still have snow through
mid or even late July. And sosummer comes late. If you're in
eastern Washington, summer comesearly. It's already, already
getting really hot. And youknow, sometimes we have hot days
in May and June. But thatdoesn't really change the fact
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that there's still quite a bitof snow, even in a lower snow
year in these Alpine places. SoI think everybody, what Craig
and I wanted to talk about todayis like, if you're ready for big
view Alpine summer hikes withawesomeness, but you're like,
what, there's still snow. Um,we're going to talk about some
places that typically, um, areaccessible and snow free by
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early summer, um, or maybe latespring, 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 andyou don't mind a long drive, so
you want to spend some time thekettle River Range is a great
place. Yep, early season, um,again, you're going to be up
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high, six, 7000, feet, lofty,you know, lofty mountains, great
views. Uh, My only caveat forearly summer for two things,
one, ticks, the ticks are goingto be out. So you want to be be
aware of that. We don't have todeal with that in the fall. In
the fall. And I think I'vementioned this in the past.
Unlikethe Cascades, the rainy season
in the kennels is June. You geta lot of rain in June, and you
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get thunderstorms over theretoo, but you get generally long,
I mean that long daylight andwarm, warm weather, but not
excessively hot. They'll comelater in the summer. It's a
great time of year to be overthere. Such a great time of year
that last year, in June, we dida whole episode about the
kettles. So go back and listento that one if you want more
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more kettles. Range ideas, Iagree with you. Great spot,
Craig. Okay. What else now, ifyou live in the Portland area,
or Portland, Vancouver, or youdon't mind traveling again, you
know, we've talked about thegorge a lot gorgeous, lots of
waterfalls. Yeah, this is notthe great time for waterfalls.
That was earlier. You wantviews. And one of the best
places for views is the SilverStar scenic area right outside
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of Vancouver. Silver Star isamazing. It's in my 100 classic
hikes. It is half the 30 milesfrom downtown Vancouver. It's
4500feet this peak. It all burned
during the alcohol burn. So notonly have you, I mean, stand on
this thing and you see volcanos.
You see Mount Jefferson, MountHood, you know, Mount Rainier,
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Mount St Helens, Mount Adams.
You see the Portland, Vancouverarea, but also wildflowers. It's
going to be one of the earliestplaces you're going to get
wildflowers, and some of thebest wildflowers showing not
only in in that area, but in theentire state. Yeah, if you've
never been to Silver Star,that's a great, great area. But
there's other places in thegorge too that you can get up
high. There's the Monte Cristo,Monte Carlo area, which are
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don't see a fraction of thecrowds. And again, I have all
this covered in my new dayhiking Columbia River Gorge
second edition book with all Iwas just going to say, Craig,
that you should if you want togo deeper on more awesome hikes
for this time of year in thegorge, get Craig's book and or
go back and listen to ourepisode from April 2024
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where we talked about this morein depth, because same thing in
Trapper Creek, wildernessobservation peak is another good
these are all generally snowfree by Memorial Day. So yeah,
you can get a jump on thoseareas. So those are some of my
favorite early season. But evenI live in the north.
Cascades, and you think most ofthe of the east side is going to
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it's going to melt earlier. Ifyou're looking for hikes in
North Cascades that you don'tmind, 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 earlyseason 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
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Sir, Jennie will talk about theOlympics. You probably have some
of the same ideas. But I shouldalso mention one other area, in
the in the Cascades, gettingactually far from Seattle, very
close to live, Wenatchee in thelake Wenatchee area, two sure
bets for early season. Again,you're looking at South
exposure, where snow is going tomelt out. One is dirty face
peak, which is right over LakeWenatchee. Yeah, hike that in
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May. I was usually a couplepatches of snow, great views.
And the other one in Mason Ridgeis 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 LakeBonacci, great views of, you
know, so many peaks around you.
And also, there's an added bonusthat almost always there will be
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mountain goats on that summit.
So, all right, mountain goats.
Mountain Goats are alwayswonderful. 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 theOlympic Mountains, there's still
a lot of snow. So I don't wantto make this like a blanket
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statement about the entireOlympic mountain range, because
that similar to other alpineareas in Washington, you've
definitely got places with snowtill July, but one place that's
typically pretty snow free earlyin the season is Hurricane
ridge. And you know, we'vetalked about hurricane Ridge
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before, but you know, you can dosomething simple, like go up to
hurricane Hill, which isshorter, but still has amazing
views. And there are also manylonger hikes that start from
Hurricane ridge or go up tohurricane ridge, and that is
typicallyan area that by Memorial Day,
either there isn't snow orthere's like patches that are
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pretty easy to get around, so Ithink that's one of my go tos if
I'm really feeling ready for asummer big view hike. But it's
like, I know we've talked we'vetalked about this mountain in
the past, but it's one of thebest because of its position
being the farthest northeast inthe Olympics, over 6000 feet.
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Mount Townsend. Mount town youcan get into Mount Townsend by
Memorial Day, there'll be somesnow a little bit, not much. And
again, the first flowers aregoing to start coming out. This
is a great choice if you'reitching to climb a real
mountain. June has beautifulrhododendrons along that first,
like, mile and a half of themount Townsend trail I have in,
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like, June encountered snow.
There is it windy camp. It'slike, where there's that, like,
when you do that hike, there'slike, there's kind of a flat
area where there's, like, acampsite next to a lake.
Sometimes there's some snow thatyou have to navigate through
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there, but you could check onWTA trip reports and, like, see
if that's currently thesituation. But yeah, I agree
with you. Mount Townsend isgreat. And the other place, I
know we've talked about this inpatents, it's a wonderful hike.
You can do a loop. It's themount Mueller area that will be
snow free. It's lower, it's onlyit's three and a half 1000 feet
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north between Snyder Ridge, thatwhole area, and I think, can't
remember, mentioned, I loveSnyder ridge. It's great. I was
just up there last year, andunfortunately, it's not getting
maintenance, so be prepared forthat. But Mueller still in great
shape. There's several loops youcan do. There's the new Divide
Trail for a shorter loop, or dothe whole thing the views of
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Crescent Lake or lake crescent.
It's just amazing from up there.
It's fantastic. That's that is agreat hike to do early in the
season. It will, it will be snowfree 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 showingthere. Yeah, one other place
over in the Olympics I wanted tojust mention, before move on, is
striped peak. So I it's not inthe park. It's not in an alpine
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area, it's in salt Creek CountyPark, right? I recently did that
hike for the first time, andnice one. Yeah, it doesn't have
to be summer. I mean, you can dothat hike in the winter. Most of
the time it's snow free, but,um, that view is pretty
remarkable. And I was there on apretty rainy, cloudy day, and it
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was still a pretty great view.
So I can only imagine on aclear, sunny day, all the way.
Down the Strait of Juan de Fucapast pillar point. It is me. You
know, this is one of the hikesthat, for many, many years, it
was just an okay hike. And nowWTA developed this new loop that
goes into the peak. And in mynew Olympic book that will be
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out later on this year,I have it, as you know, one of
the best hikes in the area. Itis spectacular. You can get car
camp at that Columb county parkthere and make this loop. You
can hike down to a beach with awaterfall. It has definitely
become one of the better hikeson the peninsula. Yeah, I agree,
absolutely okay. And then Iguess the last kind of area I
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wanted to talk about, which youtouched 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 aroundplaces like cleol and Wenatchee
and Lake Chelan.
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You know, where it gets very,very hot, starting very soon,
but there is kind of this windowearly in the season, again on
the east side. So I'm nottalking about really deep into
Eastern Washington. We'retalking about still Alpine here,
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but because you're on the eastside of the crest, and it's much
drier and it gets hot sooner thesnow melts out a lot earlier
than it does just a few milesaway. You know, in places around
like snow, call me pass orStevens Pass or white pass. So
anyway, a couple favorites.
There's lots of great hikesthere, but a couple that I would
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just call out that are like, youwant to feel like you're on a
big summer Alpine adventure. Onewould be hex mountain near
cleoleum. That's a tough for me.
That's a tough hike, but it'sbeautiful. It's going to be snow
free early orand then another one would be
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Chelan Butte or elephant head.
It's the same trail. It's justlike how elephant head is kind
of a cool viewpoint that givesyou, like a shorter hike than
going all the way up to the topof Chelan Butte, but again,
brutal heat in the summer,kind of when I the last time I
did that hike, which was acouple years ago. It was the
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first few days of June, and thewildflowers were actually still
quite good. They were, they weredefinitely starting to fade as
it was getting, starting to gethot. But it, yeah, it was, it
was pretty cool. And I think anyother hikes in those areas would
be great. Those were just acouple that came to my mind,
yeah, consider it's in theWenatchee or electrons and
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Ridge, yeah, which is prettyhigh. And June's a good time.
It's gonna be brutally hot inthe summertime, so it's a good
time. It's, it'll be, it'll bemelted out. And the added bonus,
you're not gonna see very manypeople on either Lillian mount.
Lillian's another one you cando, yeah, through Haney. Yeah.
Those are good in June. Andthen, if you don't mind a really
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far drive, unless you live inWenatchee or in that area and
you want to backpack, becauseone of the best places at the
farthest extreme of the NorthCascades, it's going to be
melted out by June is the wholehorseshoe basin area in the pase
and wilderness. You know, if theroads clear to get in there.
I've been in there in June tobackpack. And you could summit
8000 foot peaks that time ofyear, saying the Loomis State
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Forest, which is right next toit, chippaca and some of those
other chippeka and some of thoseother peaks in the skier in the
Loomis. It's a spectacular areathat borders the st wilderness.
There's wolf packs there. You'reright on the British Columbia
border. The views you can lookinto straight down six, 7000
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feet into the Similkameen River.
Absolutely stunning if you'venever been there. So late June,
mid, late June is a great timeto be in there. Yeah, watch
incredible flowers again. Bemindful the ticks. Better than
that. It's a good time to bethere. Yeah, absolutely. And
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we'll, we'll do another episodein like mid July to talk more
about these, like, mid and latesummer hikes that are still
snowy right now, so that iscoming very soon.
If you're enjoying the podcast,we would love to have you leave
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can always leave us a tip in theshow notes. All right, bye for
now, everybody. All right. HappyTrails. Everyone. You.