Cascade Loop Road Trip: Day 6

Saturday, August 1, 2026

Day 6


The squirrels woke us up early this morning. Well before Bryan’s 6:15 alarm. We started hearing many people in our campground stirring and decided that if everyone else was getting up, we’d better too. 


We put the tent away and ate some poppyseed muffins. We drove through thick cloud to the parkinglot which appeared to be more than halfway full already. 


We were at the Paradise Trails trailhead by 6:45. We began the steep, paved path up the side of the mountain. We were huffing and puffing almost immediately. Elevation, man. It’ll get ya. But after a bit we were in the rhythm of things. We passed from paved, to gravel, and finally to a rocky dirt trail. 


We were happy not to be hiking in the direct sun as we had been yesterday. Going up within the cloud had that as an advantage.




We saw a bunny darting back and forth across the trail. We also saw a variety of chipmunks - some fat and others slender.  The fat ones tended to be by larger areas of the trail near benches. I believe they claim areas where people eat snacks and are territorial over them, but I don’t know for certain. 






We steadily passed group after group, hoping to hike up above the clouds and get a view of something beautiful. There were little steams and plentiful wildflowers. But the wind kept blowing more and more cloud past the trail and further up the mountain. We made it to the highest point of our hike without even a snack break. After the hike a few days ago in North Cascades, this was much quicker. 








The wind started to get pretty cold, and everything we were wearing at this point was damp. We didn’t take breaks at all during this stretch of the hike because it would have been miserably cold. We hustled back down toward the Paradise Lodge. 


We stopped at a waterfall along the way, and waited in line to get a picture of it. 



When we got to the lodge, I gratefully made my way over to the fireplace and warmed myself. Then we stood in a long line and got ourselves hot chocolates. Bryan scored a cinnamon roll. I ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had packed for our hike. It was about 9:40 by now. 



We went over to the visitor center and I bought us some stickers. Then we went back to our cruck and drove to camp. Since the mountain was clouded in completely, and the forecast called for rain, we put the rest of our things away, and checked out with the ranger a day earlier than planned. 



Then we drove to Longmire visitor center and I became a Junior Ranger. From there we headed home with just a couple stops for gas and free chips and guac at Chipotle. 



This week has been a very fun road trip. We would happily visit all three places again in the future. I hope we will. 


Until next trip! 

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