Cutthroat Lake Trail, North Cascades Highway

Cutthroat Lake Trail is short, 4 miles round trip approximately. Fairly level, but has good views of some mountains with little effort to view them. It is a great place right off the highway to stretch your legs, throw a pole in the water or just enjoy a quick stroll through the forest with lots of openings to view the mountains that surround the lake. There are 2 log bridges you cross to get to the lake, and a trail that continues around the backside. I have hiked this trail a couple of times, especially when I know the weathers going to be bad and I don't want to get soaked, or I am short on time and want to squeeze a quick hike in. This is a very popular trail, so start early if you want to enjoy it with less folks. This trail head will also lead to Cutthroat Pass, then on to the PCT. Just a short post, still working on those 2014 hikes.

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The Places We Can Go

Life goes on, things change, storms of life come and go. One thing that always remains the same is the feeling and quiet peace I feel from being in the mountains. This was a spur of the moment overnight trip. It was so needed and such a beautiful time. Left the house around 2:30 PM, traffic was so slow heading up Hwy 20, lots of folks heading out of Mazama. Arrived at the trail head a few minutes before 4 PM, and we were off down the trail in a few minutes. Three quarters of a mile down the trail a bee or some kind of flying ant decided to bite my nieces eye lid, talk about hysteria for a moment. I was pretty sure our trip was over, but we were able to move on with a very cold creek soaked multipurpose face mask. The sun was sinking fast and the wind was howling by the time we reached the top. Made some quick decisions on the best place to park the tents, and we set up camp. It was truly an incredible evening, hiked aroun...

Yellow Jacket Sno-Park.......................

December 29th, 2012 came along with some beautiful weather in the Mazama area....broken blue skys and a nice 21 degrees.....with my little brother and his wife up visiting through the holiday season we ventured out to play in the snow.....We originally headed up to snowshoe the Cedar Creek trail....but Hwy 20 wasn't plowed past the first sign at the bottom.....and when we came across the Early Winters bridge we could see trucks and cars parked on both sides of the road....somewhere between 25-40 rigs.....lots of snowmobile trailers.....we decided that we needed to locate another snowshoeing spot with a little less traffic since my brother wanted to do a little snowboarding if possible......so we headed to Yellow Jacket Sno-Park....Large parking area with just a few vehicles parked....we strapped on our gear and headed up the trail....nice easy hike up a groomed snowmobile track....lots of places to step off the trail and explore...we pretty much stuck to the trail on the way up.....

Not all trails are created equal

Beautiful big views, abundance of flowers, snow capped mountains all around and singing birds. I love this hike when the flowers are blooming. This is a hike you can do multiple times in the spring and there is always new flowers blooming. The mountain views are incredible, a nice view of the valley floor looking up towards Mazama and back down towards Twisp. So much to see, hear and enjoy. This is the perfect hike for an evening adventure, not to long, a fairly easy hike, the birds are very active and keep you company as you make the loop. These pictures are only from one side of the loop, I ran out of good light to complete it since I stopped for every flower along the way. When the balsam root is blooming it is a beautiful display of golden flowers, intermixed with lupine and larkspur. I have hiked this trail many times over the years and am always amazed by natures incredible beauty. ...

Lost In The Right Direction

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