Hiking

First Trip to the Gospel Hump

The Gospel Hump Wilderness is fairly local to us, and it actually wasn’t on fire this year when we were able to go, so we packed up for an overnight, laced on the hiking boots and headed that way.

We’ve actually been in the neighborhood of the Gospel Hump several times, including last fall, but this was are first time to make it a primary destination for a trip. There is a ‘cherry stem’ road that takes you up high and right into the middle of the wilderness area, and that seemed like a good jumping off point for a couple of day hikes and exploring the access into the area.

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A Loop of Washington’s National Parks | Mt. Rainier National Park

After picking up our tuna in Westport we spent the rest of the day moving east while avoiding Washington’s biggest cities. Making the loop from North Cascade to Olympic and then on to Rainer had the added bonus of creating a route that avoided the traffic and chaos of Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia. By late afternoon we were close enough to Mt. Rainier that we could get into the park and try and beat the big crowds we knew we’d find at Paradise. The next morning we arrived at Paradise fairly early, and just barely in time. The parking lot was filling with the hoardes.

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A Loop of Washington’s National Parks | North Cascade National Park

After hiking in the North Cascades for two days without actually making it into the national park, we ventured further along highway 20 and spent our third day in the park. Besides highway 20 there are a few other access points to North Cascade National Park, but overall, even more so than most national parks, if you don’t get on the trail and take a hike or backpack trip you aren’t going to see very much here. We had pondered a backpack trip during our planning, but a couple weeks out from departure the available overnight permits were pretty few and far between. We could either backpack in as far as we could day hike (too short), or we could pack in 20 plus miles (too long). We opted for day hikes instead.

We headed to the Thunder Creek trail and up the drainage we went.

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Continue ReadingA Loop of Washington’s National Parks | North Cascade National Park