I have wanted to get to North Cascades National Park for several years. It just slightly to far for a day trip. I took a weekend with my son to hit two hikes. Chain Lakes Loop and Maple Pass loop were the chosen trails. WOW JUST WOW. That is my best description of the North Cascades National Park. The views and the hike were truly outstanding. I have wanted to get back to the Sierra Nevada mountain range with Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon and all the incredible beauty it has, but I now have a new plan: North Cascades National Park. The landscape here is every bit as dramatic as the southern neighbor but closer and most can be reached with long day hikes.
We start off on the Chain Lakes Loop trail with a slight incline across the side of a mountain. The view of Mount Baker is right in front of us. It is capped with a cloud hat as we start. It get completely cover mid day and then the clouds clear mid afternoon. Mt Shuksan is behind us with the sunrise right behind it.
We reach the trail junction with Ptarmigan Ridge and summit a small ridge to head toward our first lake. Mazama Lake has several camp sites. We head down to the Lake thinking we can go around the far side and rejoin the trail. We were wrong. It was nice to get a good view of the lake but I would not take this side trail on my next visit. We returned via the same trail and continued on towards the next lake.
The next lake is the largest in the chain: Iceberg Lake. A stunning green blue water at the base of a cliff and rock slides coming down to the lakes edge. I doubt my pictures or videos do it justice.
The trail heads around the left side of the lake where you come upon Hayes Lake. Hayes Lake and Arbuthnot Lake have camp sites. You would have to hike to the end of Hayes Lake for a view of Arbuthnot Lake. We did not do this.
From here we hike up over the pass next to Mazama Dome and leave the Iceberg Lake valley. I can really tell we are at elevation. The parking lot was 5070 feet.
Mt Shuksan and the Bagley Lakes come into view as we crest the summit. Of course there is a bit more uphill to get over to the trail descending into the Bagley Lakes valley. It was a LONG rocky two miles down to the lake. We crossed the Bagley Lakes bridge and arrived at Heather Meadows. There was a view up the small valley of the other Lakes in the group. We could have hiked the short trail but started heading back UP to the parking lot.
I say UP, I mean UP. It was a 1.5 mile 600 foot elevation gain to get back to the Artist Point parking area. It was brutal. There was a nice view back at Heather Lake and a great view across the valley of the trail down from the summit, but the steps. The log steps for the middle of this return hike were BRUTAL. This was the hardest part of this hike. There were at least 100 steep log steps to get you up to parking lot 1 of 3. It was exhausting. Even after these brutal steps we had to continue up past two parking areas to finally get back to the car.
After a break, we followed up this hike with the two mile Artist Point with fantastic views of Mount Baker and Mt Shuksan.