Welcome to The Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host Jennie Thwing Flaming. Along with my part time co host guidebook, author Craig Romano. We provide practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels. That is helpful, accurate, fun and inclusive. We would love to hear from you, our listeners, the second link in the show notes right below the tip jar. Hint Hint, is our voice
memo link. Please leave us a voice memo with your question. And we will answer it in a future episode. Okay, today, we are going to be talking about the kettle River Range, also known as the kettles, which are mountains in Washington State that are pretty awesome. And another one that people have not always heard of, or may not be familiar with. So, Craig, I this is an area that I've been to in Washington, but I have not
really hiked there. So let's start by having you shared just a little bit about where we're talking about kind of what the features are there. And then we'll get into some things about hiking.
what's yours? Absolutely right. Most people if you mentioned the kettle river range, or Northeastern Washington, it's a blank. And that's actually one of the things that drew me to the place originally, like at Abbey getting getting those maps out looking for those blank spots on
the map, right. So let's talk about what the kettle River Range is not if you've driven cross Washington in i 90 is primarily how you do it is not Moses like okay, the kettle mountain, the kind of mountain range to kind of river river ranges actually, it's forested, but it's a very different type of forest and a very different type of mountain. First of all, these mountains if you if you spent any time back east, they look like the Smokies. They are worn down. They're there.
They're lofty. They're six and 7000 feet, except they're more Ridge gentle there. And the main reason they're more worn down and look like the Smokies is because of the oldest mountain range in the state. The Cascades are young, they're they're feisty, they're they're rugged. These guys are mellow, they're all so it's like the Appalachian
Mountains in the Northwest. And just like the Smokies, the kettles are a biologic the biological diversity is incredible because it is the transition zone between the Cascades and the Rockies. Technically, the the Rockies I mean, it's part of that, you know, it's an it's part of the monashee mountains, the interior ranges that come from the British Columbia, it's a
transition zone. So you'll see cedars in there, but you're also gonna see pine forests, you're gonna see flowers in the Cascades that you're familiar with, but you're gonna see rocky mountain flowers in there too. But for me, the two biggest draws to this area are one, the it's a de facto wilderness and we'll talk a little more about that what I mean it's it's wild, very County, which where these mountains are located. There's only seven and a half 1000 people in the entire county.
Okay, that's like a city block and Seattle, seven in there's no streetlights, you know, no, no traffic lights. I mean, the streetlights in the ribbon. There's no traffic lights and the entire county there's no McDonald's. There's no Starbucks. I mean, it's it's a part of the state that that's very different than certainly Puget Sound. It's a part of the the older Washington half half the county is Colville nation.
So it's amazing. And with that said, the wildlife when I called them the megafauna is amazing because first of all, the northeastern part of the state half of all the links in the entire country lower 48 live in this part of Washington. Not so big kiddies, and then you know, cougars, moose, you know, deer. The occasional grizzly bear, you know, in this area
hot there for a second. Some people may not know that we have moose. There
are a lot in Washington. A lot of moose in there in the northeastern part of the state. Yep. So yeah, yeah. So you've got you've got big deer, moose. They're very large rocks. Yeah. Wolves. You know, wolves, very healthy wolf population are several packs of wolves out there. So your chance of seeing the mega the megafauna
is amazing. And when I call it the fact where here's so here's the reality, this area, and I wrote a book about this 15 years ago with conservation Northwest about exploring the Columbia Highlands trying to protect this region, because the Colville national forests which which a lot of the kettles fall under only 3% of the Colville National Forest is wilderness. It's one of the lowest there are national forest in Mississippi, Florida and Alabama, that have more
their land in wilderness. So this has been, you know really tough for conservation is trying to get this protected. But it is a roadless area. It's a de facto wilderness. And the range is traversed by a 40 plus mile trail with lots of feeder trails. And so I write about in my backpacking book I write about it my day hike in eastern Washington book. Yep, there's so many, so many plays so many shorter hikes you can do or you can, you know, go out and do. Long backpacks or trail runs in
this area. So, if you've never it's, it's amazing you if you've never been there, I have no idea you're gonna be blown away. Also, I should mention it Sherman pass which highway 20 goes over, which crosses the kettles, right? Is the highest public road in Washington. So it's 5500 feet, so it's higher than any of the passes in the Cascades. The other thing to the forest is very different Western larch. Okay, it's Western large.
So just gonna, I was just going to ask you to talk about larches. So so
not the Alpine larches that you're familiar with in the Cascades, these are Western larger, bigger trees. So quite big, quite large. And they turn a little bit later in the season. So for mid October, right up into early November, and unlike the Alpine larches, they're just occupying the high elevations and these are the these lake basins, you'll have entire slopes of these western larches you also have Aspen and cottonwoods out there. So the autumn foliage is spectacular. Yeah, it can
get hot Are you seeing late October is better for Fall polish?
Yeah, middle middle of October. Yeah, we're your Alpine larches you know, they're turning mid late September, right? Right. So you're getting you know, you get that second large showing if you you know you're done with the Cascades head over to the kettles. Summer can be hot, but But it comes to be really pleasant. So you never know. So it can be pleasant. Again, you're on you're on six and 7000 foot mountains. Then there's
lakes in the valleys. And the great thing about when it gets hot in those valleys over in that area, those lakes warm up. They're wonderful for jumping in, you know, so you can actually enjoy those in the night school down. So that's, you know, so again, it's a really neat and the other thing I should talk about too, is Yeah, it definitely melts out in those areas by the end of May, late June, but unlike the Cascades, June is one of the wettest months in the interior
rains. Yep. So you gotta watch out especially like for lightning storms.
Yeah. And a lot of a lot of the rain over there is going to come as electrical storms. Yeah, so that's definitely again, if you ever have hiked in the Rockies, you're gonna be thinking more like Rocky Mountain weather. We're electrical storms are far more common over there. But you know, you're not going to be on a 14,000 foot expose peak either, so you can get down to coverage a lot quicker. So yeah, this is an area again, I can't
say enough about it. I said I wrote an entire book about about the area about the culture, I love the people the the cold evidence and never actually got married my wife and I got
married and very County. It was a very, very, very first place when we started dating back into it and 996 So that was a good first place I took her camping was crew Lake State Park because I wanted her to have this amazing experience of a different part of the state and and we got married at our campsite at Cru Lake State Park, and I'm happy to report that unlike some of the other parts of Washington and the country for that is that every time I return to ferry County in that
it still looks pretty much the same. Yeah, and there's not too many places that we can say that about me change is rapid. So much of the country. So it's a special place. That
area has some awesome dark skies. Oh,
it's definitely dark. Definitely Dark Sky Country. Yeah, I mean, you're a long way. Spokane is your nearest large city and it's
still 100 miles away. So in the same thing, the interior of British Columbia there's no big and that's the other thing you get on those, those high peaks on there, right and you're gonna on a clear day, and you're walking you can see as far as the Cascades, the North Cascades, you're looking into the interior range in British Columbia, you can see out to the plateau, the Columbia plateau south and into the Selkirk in far eastern Washington and into Idaho. Yeah, it's just yeah, far
range. Oh, and I should also mention one of the craziest experiences I've ever had up out there. And, again, this is wildlife heaven out there. And I've run into moose and all kinds of one of the scariest encounters sort of encounter I love talking about this is that I was on top of the Barnaby boots, which is old fire lookout in south part of cattle. When I heard the most god awful distressful sounds I've ever heard. It was very, very scary.
The whole thing and what I was listening to it was mating season for cougars. And if you've ever terrifying and I always tell people be very very careful if you ever want to hear of a cougar sound like maybe you can google meeting cougars, but be really careful. You don't know where you're gonna end up on the internet on that one. But to hear what that sounds like, it is unbelievable. It's not very pleasurable for Miss Coover. And it's awful. But there are so many Cougars in
that area. It just the tracks you're gonna see them everywhere and again, there's a lot of bobcats and there's always a chance of seeing links out there so if you're into the into the cats into the kitties that this is a good place for it. Yes.
If you're if you're into kidding encounter
No, you don't wanna you don't want to terrify and also don't want to break up. Morris couple of Cougars so we know for
sure not I was also going to mention, um, you know, this is a very remote part of Washington. But there are a couple of great kind of food and drink options and we're in public
opinion of a great little brew pub, right in writing Republic. Yeah, yeah.
And it's in like an old fire. Fire Hall. Yeah, super cool place and you can get it. Get pizza brought in there and some other stuff. So it's, it's a fun little spot.
And what's neat about Republic to this, what you gotta love about about small towns, everything. I mean, the personalities are great in rural Minnesota, and this is a place republics, one of the places you have I would describe it, you definitely have the black helicopter people out there, off the grid. And you also have the hippie back to the earth people there. So you've got these, you know, quite a bit of variety and that they all get to come together in this tiny town and
share a beer together. So it's great. I mean, it's it's it's a really eclectic town. I love the town. And you know, talking about place to do the coop, there's wonderful too, you know, food. There's a great little Mexican place there. But it's a funky little town if you've never been there. So if you're looking for a place to stay, the northern in is that is my
recommendation. I've stayed there many, many, many times after we had a reception, but it's also a great state park, Curlew Lake State Park is a great place to camp and then in the Colville there's some really really quiet National Forest campgrounds. Yes.
Yeah, there are. There's several on like different lakes.
We have Swan Lake is a very, very nice campground. Yeah. Yeah. And the CCC actually developed that there's, you know, one of their signature picnic shelters and everything like that. Yeah. Yeah, it's this. So I've been going back to this area many, many years. And again, I've written about it and there's still so much discovery and it should mention mining history a lot. There's a lot of old mines and industrial active mines is an active Goldmine in
an area too. So mining, the whole mining industry has been very prominent there. So you're gonna you know, there's lots of ore mined roads, to explore old mines. You're gonna you're gonna stumble upon it and then yeah, and then the river itself, the kettle River. It starts in BC it kind of swerves into the US and then goes back into BC and that swerves back down to meet the Columbia. It is a great rafting river, you know, to do that a
lot of fun. The ferry County, the ferry Rail Trail, which Bobby Whittaker of the Whitaker family you may know very famous family here in Seattle. He's been instrumental in getting that going. It's a 30 mile rail trail that goes from outside of Republic to the Canadian border to Grand Forks BC. In May of two trestles over over Crewe Lake. You go through a tunnel you go along along the kettle river it is a great for for long trail runs for short hikes for for mountain biking for skiing in
the wintertime. Yeah. Cool.
So what are a couple of other like specific hikes maybe date let's say day hikes for now. Other than the rail trail that you'd really recommend
the easiest if you're if you're visiting for the first time the absolute easiest to get to because it's right off highway 20 paved road you got two choices right there. You can park this trailhead, right right at the pass. And you can Sherman Sherman pass and you can do you know the Columbia Mountain Lookout Columbia people go and there's one of the oldest cupola lookouts there it was built in 19 teens was restored.
That's a great hike. There's a loop that goes around it and on the south side is Sherman mountain. And Sherman same thing should some of the Sherman doesn't have a trail you can easily scramble up it but there's a loop hike you can do with with with the kettle Crest Trail, and that has lots those two hikes are still there mid range they're like six miles you know, I took my my son and frantically is four of them the first big hikes he did them on that thing all by almost by
himself, the whole thing. It's a great family friendly hike and you know good for wildlife and, and views. I mean again, wide ranging views. Another one my favorite is WAPA Lucy mountain and you access that off of a dirt Forest Road. Wonderful Meadows on this one. It's just you have an entire slope of just all open field and wildflowers, copper buttes. Another one of my favorites you can get up that one several it's the highest point in the kettle river range.
It's 7140 feet old fire look out just some little stuff up. There's like little bed, bed springs and all kinds of crazy stuff out there from. So if you're you can do some art artistic shoots and stuff like that. So those are great. And then the salsa, the kettles, White Mountain Barnaby buttes, Snowpeak just lots of great stuff in there. And, and none of these side trails are long. You have x, you're pretty close to logging roads in such to get in
there. So they're, they're pretty doable for for, you know, for day hikes short days,
right. So you can sort of decide how far you want to go and come back. And there's quite a few options.
Yeah. And if you're traveling with a friend, you know, a lot of the one ways are great if you're, if you want to do the kettle crest, you know, to try to get dropped off or, or, you know, spot a car. Yeah,
awesome. Cool. Well, is there anything else you want to share with everybody? I'm not the cattles or you
know, it's again, it's just a go to sensitive venture it's really hard to define if you've never been
there. It's again, you know, I grew up I grew up in the Northeast so the Appalachian Mountains are definitely definitely the peaks that shaped me and so much of the of the kettles remind me the Appalachian so I've always felt home there yet, when I'm looking out I'm not seeing little church steeples and little colonial towns, I'm just, I'm just looking out at what, you know, the first people saw back then a lot of rolling hills and forests and, and again, in a state, you
know, King County that's got 2.2 million people, we forget that there's a different part of the state where it's that whole northeastern corner of Washington is a whole different world out there. So
cool. Well, thanks, Craig. I'm pumped to get out there again, I I think I don't think this has come up yet on the podcast, but I worked for Pacific Science Center for many years. And one of the jobs I had involved traveling all over Washington, and if depending on the time of year and the schedule, sometimes we got to go out and do things but not always.
Did you go to the fossil? There no. So
that was a place that was further away harder to get to you. And we usually didn't end up the couple of times I was there. We just didn't have enough time to like do a ton of exploring but it was still beautiful.
So that's a place that if you um, the stone rows you can you can I forget what they charge a couple of dollars and go through the pick. I'll give you a pick and you can go look for fossils. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So kids I know. When we got married out there, my young nephews from the East Coast really enjoyed out there digging for fossils.
Love it.