Cascade Loop Road Trip: Day 2

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Day 2

The Ranger had told us that there was a great hike up to Cascade Pass, however the parking lot, we were warned, fills up by 9AM. 

We got up in plenty of time and ate some poppyseed muffins as we headed to the trailhead. When we got to the portion of the road that was unpaved, we ended up behind someone driving very cautiously, and very SLOWLY.  We inched along, mile after mile, and still made it to the parkinglot by about 8 AM. And it was pretty full. But we found a spot to park, and readied ourselves for the hike. Looking at the map at the trailhead, we were prepared for switchbacks and elevation gain. The ranger had mentioned that it was a climb, but worth it. 








We had a great hike. I closed my movement ring (burned enough calories for the day) by 9:30AM. That was a first! 😄 We were both feeling grateful to encounter this trail at the end of the summer when we’d already done quite a bit of hiking - from a physical conditioning standpoint. It was work, but we weren’t struggling. We got up to the pass and ate some summer sausage. Each of us thought the other had packed the Ritz crackers when we were down at the trailhead, so it was just the meat this time. Oops! 

I saw some mountain goats way up above us. Clouds blew in, partially covering the mountains around us. I put my jacket back on. 





Then a hiker came through. He’d been up the Sahale Arm trail to the glacier, and told us all about the goats and marmots he had seen. He even saw a couple of bear earlier in the morning. We decided that for marmots, we’d be willing to do some more switchbacks. 











After that, it was steep. Way steeper than what we had been hiking previous. Practically stairs. Already tired from the first almost four miles of up, we were really working at this point. And, man!  Was it beautiful. So many wildflowers. Pica chirping at us. We finally saw a marmot. And then we made it to the view of the valley. Wow!  We could see Doubtful Lake down below. And water falling down the steep slopes behind it. The view was tremendous. We took pictures and posed for pictures. 








We didn’t go much further past that. We had had a great hike, and were ready to start back. Our leg muses by this time were getting pretty tired. But we had energy to go quickly, and didn’t need many breaks on the way down. By the time we had hiked back down through the forest and to the parking lot, we had done ten miles. Whew!  We got ourselves cold drinks out of the cooler (I had a berry ginger kombucha) and drove back into town. 





We pulled into the Upriver Grill and Taproom and had two of the best burgers ever. They were on brioche buns (I went and got Lactaid out of the car when I saw that). The fries were excellent, also. And not just because we had hiked ten miles. If you are visiting North Cascades, and enjoy a good burger, you should stop in. 



Next Bryan washed the dust off our windshield (it was so thick we could barely see) and headed to get our picture with the best National Park sign we’ve seen yet. It is fully three dimensional, and the family before us had kids climbing up on the rocks for their picture. 

After that we went again to the visitor center. I finished up my junior ranger activities, and we sat down and watched the video. I got up the nerve to go turn in my packet. I feel a little silly being an adult doing activities in a book labeled “3+” 😄  When it was my turn to talk to the ranger, I slid my booklet towards her and said with a smile “I’d like to become a junior ranger, please.”




She flipped through my book, noticing the drawing I had done of a Columbine flower for my Bingo game. I had put down a marmot as something soft, with a little note explaining that I did not touch one. She laughed at that, asked if we had done Cascade Pass. I told her we had. She told me a funny story about marmots. And then she swore me in, having me promise to continue not touching marmots.  And then she gave me a badge and just like that I was the newest Junior Ranger in North Cascades. 😉 I sincerely appreciate that she didn’t tease me about being too old for such things. 


At this point, we felt pretty satisfied with our day.  We drove to the store to see if we could find some ice cream. They were closed. They had closed at 4PM while we were at the visitor’s center. 


Bryan asked me what I wanted to do for the rest of our day. I told him I wasn’t up for the other hike we had planned on. He was not feeling like doing more hiking either. We just wanted to relax. So we headed back to our campsite. We asked one of the other campers if we could pull our chairs over near the water and we watched the water go by and had a cold drink. Bryan got the list of hikes and we picked one for tomorrow. (Actually we picked two: one if we were feeling sore/stiff, and one if we were feeling good.) 


Then we set up our tent. And I lay down and listened to my audio Bible portion for the day. 


Eventually, I made us hotdogs for dinner. Then the bugs came out and we got up into the tent to outwit the bugs. We played Oregon Trail on the iPad until bedtime. 


Around 9PM we started feeling like going to sleep, but our neighbors had brought a karaoke machine, and we’re living their best lives loudly singing Spanish songs about 60 ft away from our tent.  🤦🏼‍♀️


I fell asleep anyway before they stopped singing 😄


To keep Traveling with the Schmidts: Day 3


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