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. Music. Well, hello again, everyone. Jennie, here, Craig and I are back in the Lego studio in Edmonds, Washington, and here we are, if you can believe it, in at the end of September, fall is starting this week. Isn't that crazy? I mean, it's already the days are getting shorter. I know, right? It just goes all of a sudden. It just goes really fast.
And something I know both of us agree about is fall being the best hiking season of the entire year. You know, what drives me absolutely crazy about fall is that there's only three months, and it's only two months a really good fall. And you know, not only here in the Northwest, which, I mean, I love hype, but I love to go back to my native New England. I love going, you know, I've hiked in Europe, and I've hiked in Japan, and fall is the best time for all these places. There's not enough fall.
Yeah, I agree. I could live with fall being, like, half the year instead of spring being half the year. I think I can go for that. Okay, so before we get into some specific hikes, let's talk about why fall hiking is so great in Washington. So Craig, what would you say are the reasons? Without a doubt, there's no bugs. The Bugs Are Gone dreamy. The bugs,
that's one of the best thing. So again, it's still generally, and go into it's generally warm, not hot, generally warm without the I mean, we do get some humidity here in the Northwest. So you get these clear these, just these wonderful the sun is warming up, but there's still like a little cool breeze. I love the freshness, the brisk air of the morning. You know, it's so no humidity, no you know, you no heat, no bugs. That's
probably the number one reason why I love Yeah, yeah. No bugs is a really big deal. I you know, I would just add maybe this is too obvious, but just the fall colors that we see on our trails that start in the same thing. Even this sounds kind of morbid and everything, but I even like the smell of death in the fall, the dying plants and everything. I don't know. It's just something about, I mean, it's, it's renewal, it's a circle,
right? But there's something about, you know, those cool mornings and you're walking on the frost and crunch, the crunching, and the plants are dying, and the mushrooms are all kind of a cool feeling and a cool smell. Yeah, it's a great smell. I love the smell of death. You know, that is a kind of grim way of thinking about it, but I know exactly what you mean. It's got, like my apocalypse. Now reference the smell of napalm.
Yes, yes. Yes. Okay, so there's lots of things to love about fall hiking, clearly, but there are a couple things I don't know that I would say they're downsides, but they're things that can catch you off guard in
the fall. And I'm thinking of primarily how, you know, we still have those warm, beautiful days, but the days are a lot shorter, and at night it's cold, especially in the mountains, so that can so if you're not like Craig and I, and you don't carry your headlamp with you all the time, this is a good time to start. Dig it out, find it, put it in your pack. You don't want to be starting hikes at 10 o'clock in October? Well, if they're short on these all day hikes, challenging hikes, you
gotta pay more attention. You want to start at sunrise? Yeah, yep, totally. And then I think the other one is just the unpredictable nature of the weather. You know, we can have if you're going on an Alpine hike at 5000 feet, we can't have snowstorms there in late September and early October. Yeah, definitely. And just even without storms, the wind, just the differential in the temperature, yes, so you're going to want to have more layers in your pack. And again, the that sun, the other thing,
the sun is low in the sky. If you're coming down a north slope, that sun is going to be ducked behind. You're going to be in the shade a lot. It's going to get colder a lot. And because we're in the northwest, there's a lot of moisture in the air. That's going to be a lot colder. You're going to want that jacket to keep you a little warmer. It's things going to get damp even on a nice day. Yeah, totally agree with that, and this is a really good time of
year. It's always a great idea to check like WTA is. Trip reports to see how things are. But it's especially important in fall and spring, when you're trying to understand, Okay, is there snow? How much snow like, can I still get to the trailhead? Because that can, you know, you've got hikes in, like the North Cascades or Mount Rainier that one year you may be able to hike them into the beginning of November, and the next year, end of September, you can't get
there. So just be aware, if you're making a plan, that those things can be pretty unpredictable. And the other thing too, on that too fall generally, is when the rains are going to return on a regular basis. And usually always, I've lived here for 35 years, and usually you have this nice, dry, warm weather, if we're lucky, going out into mid, mid October, and then all sudden, just someone turns on the faucet, right, right, and it rains a lot, and, but, yeah, but then you'll still get some
good days. But here's the thing, what happens you're used to drier. You know, drier? Yep, conditions out there. Now be prepared that you're gonna have creek crossings. Now you know that you're gonna be dealing with. So what was just a trickle all summer could? Could be a potential problem now. So you have to think about things that. And then when we get the serious storms that come in, they often do serious damage, washing out parts of your trail or a bridge.
Also, even in areas that before the storms, like Mount Rainier National parking, they start pulling some of these temporary bridges out as well, because they will be washed out if they don't, yes. So you have to be aware of this stuff. Yep. Also a lot of land managing agencies will start gating roads for certain reason. October 1 is a
big one with hunting season. So in the Olympic Peninsula, some of these trails you might not be able to get to now, or it's gonna be much longer you see, you have to start planning a lot of this up. And also, I mentioned too, it's hunting season. Yeah, hunting season actually starts in August. You know, though you're gonna see it
more as it progresses. So if you're not comfortable being around people hunting your you know your option is not to hike at all in the fall, or you hike in places like national parks and state parks where it's not allowed, but Dawn orange, really good point. Yeah. And if you're going to be in places that are popular with hunting, in regardless of how you feel about hunting, it is legal, and they have a legal right to be out there, yeah, you need to be
responsible. And I have an orange vest and an orange cap that I use when I'm out there, especially in some of these remote trails when it's just me and the hunters out there, so that I'm visible and I'm not crashing off through brush somewhere where there's a lot of hunters, and likewise with your dog, but put an orange vest on your dog and keep your dog with you. Yes, really, really good advice and a really important,
important point. Okay, so we talked about kind of organizing this around the different types of fall color that we have in Washington, and you're from New England, some kind of a color snob, and I understand that, but we do have some pretty great stuff here, I gotta say, although it's not New England, what gives Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New York, a run for its money, are the Alpine larches, yes, and we're
gonna get to those. So I was thinking maybe we could do this sort of in the order that they come out. So maybe we could, and then this isn't perfect, because it's not this linear, as I'm gonna make it sound, but let's start with those high alpine brush so if you haven't seen this before, in alpine areas of Washington State, where there are blueberry bushes and other berry bushes, those turn like a bright red, or some plants turn
orange or yellow. Nash turns orange, yes, so it's not like a tree, but you can look out at a meadow and just see this incredible color. So I was wondering, Craig, if you could share a couple of hikes that you really love, and then I'll share a couple of mine. So the key with these, these areas, they usually start changing the end of August, in higher areas, you want to look for, particularly for places that were disturbed, because that's where a lot so avalanche shoots are big and old
burns. So one of the places off of Beckler river, so this is off of Highway two going places like frog mountain, yeah, benchmark the whole area that had 100 years ago fires, big fires came in and swept so a lot of that has not recovered the forest. So it's a lot of open and mountain ash. The blueberry absolutely spectacular in October, just these carpets of red orange. So you want to look for any of these areas. Same thing in Mount Rainier National Park, schlander Peak. Schlander Peak is
spectacular. Yeah, I think I've only done it in the fall. It's an incredible hike to do with the color up there, because, again, it's an old burn area, so anywhere the burn the Evergreens are gone in these places, and it's going to be deciduous shrubs that are that have taken over in that area. Yeah, I Those are awesome ones. I think I my top two, or maybe top three.
Would be Lake Valhalla at Stevens Pass, same reason.
McClellan, no, what's the peak there? Why am I drawing a blank on the peak over Lake valhalla? But I can picture it. I just don't think. But yes, it all burned. Yes, yes. And that. I mean, when you get to that lake, the fall color there that is kind of elite September. So like, now, like next weekend, just when you want to go, um, I mean, it's busy there. But like,
Wow, is that beautiful. The like, bright red and yellow on that hillside of Mount MC, whatever I'm drawn, blanking out right now, you'll know it. You'll know it when you see it. So that would be one, and I think another one for me would be it's a little harder to get to because you got to go up to mawich lake, long dirt road. But spray park, I think, is in Mount Rainier National Park, is really beautiful.
The blueberries are amazing. And that's also kind of a late September to early October thing, which is good, because that road closes in early October. And then another one is, you know, an unending favorite that this is at least the third time I've talked about it on this podcast, is the Natchez peak. Oh yeah, that one in Mount Rainier National Park at Chinook pass. Again, the red berries, amazing.
So those would be my Alpine ones if you're looking for in the Olympics, because the Olympics is probably one of the greenest places I've ever hired, and there's so little fall color. Yeah, Olympics. But here's the key. Near Flapjack lakes are the black and white lakes. Now, here's the funny thing, they're black and white. They were named after an old mine and everything. Okay? That whole area went up in flames in the 30s. Okay? It is incredible. The color in there, it is absolutely
spectacular. I've written about this as one of the best places in Fox in my my backpacking book, too, the details, then the mountain ash, the Huckleberry, the blueberries, the sedges, the sedges turn the bright yellow, and everything it is that's probably, I've not found a better place in the Olympics for color. Sunrise. Lake is not too bad, too it's a small area. You'll get some color in there, but mostly you're going to be in
just dark green. How are the other the best places for for Washington that I find in general, for color, besides those alpine is go east the Eastern Washington, because there's more deciduous trees out there. We'll get to that in a minute. Excellent. Okay, so before we do that, though, let's go. Let's go to vine Maples next. And I know this is like a specific plant, but so are some of the others we're talking about. I'm gonna just own my own
love of the vine. People gorgeous, and they, you know, sometimes you see them turning as early as August, and sometimes you see them in October. They're kind of one of those that kind of takes forever, and you'll know you're looking at a vine maple because the leaves are somewhat maple shaped, but also because they get this cool, like rainbow kind of thing, you know, when they start to be red and then they are still green on the inside. Anyway, they're just beautiful.
So you don't need to hike to see vine maples. They're all along the sides of all of our freeways that cross the mountains. But are there any any hikes that come to mind for Vine maples? Yeah. So the vine Maple is, there's a couple subspecies of those. So you see a lot of those. Again, they're going to be in any of your disturbed areas. A lot of them are going to be but where I find the best places for Vine May is the Columbia River Gorge, where it's predominant. It's, it's your
predominant understory, yep. And absolutely spectacular on a lot of these hikes. The yellows in there just incredible. Again, I should also mention the gorge being farther south there. It has more deciduous trees in general. You have, you have Oregon ash, The Oaks. Oaks don't really change. They're not that pretty in the fall. But the ash, the ash is very, very beautiful. So the gorge has some really nice color. It could come this time of year. So check this out.
But yeah, Vine maples, they can add just this incredible layer underneath. Yeah, and you know, I'm just thinking, most of the hikes in the i 90 corridor have vine maples,
you know, one like, ridiculously popular hike snow lake, you know, like, is it the second most popular hike in the state? But
I'm gonna just tell you the first like mile of that hike has amazing vine maples, like end of September or beginning of October, malacqua Lake next to Yeah, you're gonna get some color there too. Almost every I 90 hike has at least some fine maples. And it's gonna be a wee bit less crowded in the fall, not a ton, but a wee bit the tree that a lot of people we're talking about the Low Country area too. Do we have a very, very predominant tree throughout the Northwest?
Us that nobody notices until the fall. That's the Cascara. And you will see that you'll start noticing that tree in the fall, because it turns it's like, it's, I think it's related to birches. And so you get this beautiful yellow, yeah, like, what is that? You'll never notice it during the summertime. So I know in place, like in the cap forest, the capital state forest, in some of those areas, all sudden, some of the lake hikes and such going in there. It's like, where is
surrounded. It's just gorgeous, yeah, reflection like, so you're gonna start noticing that in your low country, yes, yeah. So, okay, let's go to the probably Washington favorite, the one that gets all the love, the larch tree. And we did talk about larches a little bit last week when we were talking about North Cascades. So what about outside? So we covered several in the North Cascades. Do you I, maybe I just want to ask you what your favorite large hikes are. I mean, they're just
spectacular. I mean, first of all, and we should, we should back up for a while. So there's two different types of large streets in the state. Is the Alpine and the Western. We'll talk about the Western next, but the Alpine large. What makes it? Besides, it's gorgeous. What makes it so it's a scarcity, yeah, it doesn't grow in a lot of areas. Yeah, it's predominantly in the east side of the Cascades at high altitudes in the north half of the state, right? So that's the
thing. And even farther north, it only goes into a small little section to Manning Park in British Columbia. It truly is, and there's some of the Rockies too, but it's not widespread, no? And we live in one of the areas where it's, it's it's happening here, yes, it is truly spectac It's golden. The soft needles. If you don't know what a larch is, it is a deciduous conifer. Okay, it's a conifer, you know, drops its needles. Looks like a pine tree
until the needles are gone. Imagine people, if you see it in the wintertime, you think, what are all these dead pines over here? So
it's just absolutely out. You know, my favorite place. You know, the region, I love the twisp River Valley we talked about. There's so many wonderful Alpine larch hikes there. And you actually have to work for these, you know, yeah, you got to work to get up there, because they're Alpine larches. They're growing up quite high, yeah. So in the Lake Chelan sawtooth wilderness. So going farther to the east. This is south of Winthrop, places like Eagle the eagle
lakes. Yeah, unbelievable. In there, Cooney Lake, in there. The there's a hike. It's in my backpacking book. It's, it's called the angel staircase. It's a 25 mile loop that goes by boiling lakes, Eagle lakes, coon Lake. You're just going through a half dozen these things. It's large heaven. The Martin lakes, Sunrise Lake, they're all in the same stretch in here. It's all just south of Winthrop. So those are my favorite and they and because it's so far from Seattle and Vancouver and Portland, it
doesn't get crowded. Yeah, and I gotta tell you, since we're just talking about favorites here, and we did talk about several other examples last week, and we're gonna get into western lurches in a minute. I gotta tell you, mine is grasshopper pass, and it's a good one. It is like impossible to get to. It's a long drive, too. So I know I feel really bad about recommending it, but like it really is my favorite. It's and when Craig is saying it's a long drive, it's a long drive from
Winthrop, right? Oh, yeah. So not a lot of Washingtonians or Oregonians or British Columbians live near Winthrop, right? So first you have to get to Winthrop, and then it's like a solid two hours on a really challenging hearts pass, and it's, you know, it's funny, it's considered a white knuckle road because one area called Dead Horse pass, and it got its name because some horses went off of
it. Yeah, if you're driving a British car, you'll probably feel more comfortable, because I think where people freak out is because they look over the side and just stop so you don't look over the side while you're driving. Truly have to go slow, but it's only one tiny section, yeah? And that's the thing, it's amazing, people, you get by it. It's just that one little section. And the other thing, the roads actually in really good shape. I've taken a sedan up that. You don't need a four
by four to get up there. So once you get to the top, it's a dark sky area. I've camped up there. Yeah, there's two wonderful campers. Awesome. It's spectacular. Yeah, you're up at 6000 feet. Yeah? So, yes. So that grasshopper. And then if you go the other side to Silver Lake, which is another, lots of great color in there too. Yeah, wonderful hikes. Yeah, and, and Grasshopper pass. I mean, it's about, it's nine or 10 miles round trip from that trailhead.
But you also were in the larches right away, right away, in the parking lot and the entire time. So if at any point you're tired or the weather is getting bad, or it's taking longer than you thought, and you need to turn around because of daylight, you're not really missing anything. I mean, there's you.
This hike has amazing views and larches, basically the whole way. So the further you go, the more awesome it is. But it's like, you could just go a mile and it would still be amazing. So, and it's not, there is not a lot of elevation gain and loss, 6600 feet, yeah. But it's mostly a ridge hike, which I love and it's pretty amazing. Okay, so we were talking about Alpine larches. We're gonna transition
to Western larches. One thing that I would just tell everybody, if you don't know, is the Alpine larches are peaking late September and early October. The Western larches don't, kind of come in until mid October. And I'm just mentioning that because when you see people posting photos of larches, and they're in the North Cascades, and it's like the last weekend of September, if you go to a hike in a different area, the
larches might still be green. So yeah, that's one thing that's kind of cool, is you can catch the Alpine ones, and then the Western ones in the western arches are very widespread too. I mean, they're all way into Oregon, into the Rockies. It's much and they're big trees. They some of those Western matter of fact, great. So outside in Okanagan County, outside of tenascot, in in the foods in,
which, okay, it's still in the Okanagan National Forest. The big tree trail, I believe it's called between. It's near Lake Bonaparte, yeah, it's, I think the biggest larch tree in the state is there's two massive 800 year old western larches. They are just gigantic, yeah, and this is a great trail. It's very family friendly. It's, level. You can go there. And the thing is, too you can go late in the season, because these larches, they're, they're staying yellow into early
November, yeah. So again, one of my favorite parts of the state, and it's very, no, it's, it's very little known. I absolutely love the kettle river range. We talked about this, yeah, the kettle River Range is just shrouded in western larches, yes. And if you hike in the summertime, you look out, it's pretty green. And when you hike it in October, you'll go, you're never going to see how many patches. Yeah, it's, again, it's getting close to what you're
going to see New England. You're going to see a lot of color on a slip side, yep, because of that Western larch. Yes. Then the deciduous trees you have there, cottonwoods and aspens. So they're adding so you've got, you know, you're not getting the diversity of color, but you've got more yellows than you've ever seen in the state. It's incredible. Yeah, so absolutely, the Blue Mountains. There's larches in the blues also, too. So you're heading down into the southeast corner of the state.
Yep, you've got them there too. So the larches are amazing out there. Yeah, I think I would add for mine, in addition to completely your green with that, the sneaky, kind of quiet, cool, large hike is the Swauk forest Discovery Trail on wonderful task, yes, and that is just a surprisingly awesome hike for essentially being right off the highway, right? And it's like three or four, I think it's four miles, if you do the loop, yeah, it's a nice little Yeah.
Again, you've got lurches, bright yellow right there in the parking lot, and you see them throughout the trail. That whole area is, again, it's another one those areas that people miss, if they're Yeah, because they're all going to that lake. I'm not going to mention you could see those mountains. You can see the enchantments. But if you go up into nanny the views are great, amazing. And so if you go up into nanny ridge, and for that area, there's lots of Western larches up there, I will mention
it's a popular hunting area. So take that into my gotta be ready for that. But the trails are very gentle up there. You're up at a high plateau, yep. Great area for that. And likewise, Mission Ridge, right outside of Wenatchee, yes, paved road with a ski area. So if you go up into Lake Clara and Marion, those are great, large hikes, yes. And very short, very family
friendly, yeah. So that whole area right outside of Wenatchee, lifeways up the North Fork of the Antioch, and areas that have not burned, because there's some serious fires in there, yeah. And then Chelan too. So, I mean, if you're into steak, and if you're going to steak and in the fall, the larches, yeah, are incredible there too, yes. So Boulder, Pat, Boulder peak, McAllister, not easy hikes, amazing. The larches, right
there. Totally. Okay. So last but not least, let's talk about those deciduous trees, those like Aspen and friends trees. So we don't have many of those in western Washington, but Eastern Washington has a lot. So do you have any favorite Eastern Washington fall hikes for those trees? And the other thing you have in eastern Washington too, you have a lot of birches, yes. And birches turn yellow, but so the northeast corner of the state is in the pondering, yep,
Sullivan lake. So we're talking north of Spokane.
It's where extreme north Metaline falls, that area where British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, all come together. That is a great place to be in the fall.
Sullivan Lake, you can go four miles along the lake. There's some element. I mean. The cottonwoods, the Aspen, the birch and the Western larch. Yeah, it is. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful, beautiful hike in the in the fall, yeah. So, um, that is one of my favorite places for anything in that northeast corner there, yeah, yeah. I think I would add um, any of the canyon hikes around Wenatchee are also great, like Umtanum Canyon and cowiche Canyon. Those are the first ones that came to mind.
But there are quite a few that are pretty awesome out there. Okay? And then to wrap up, Craig, we've sort of hated on Western Washington a little bit here for not having an amazing fall color, you
know, some so if you were thinking about like the urban areas of Bellingham to Olympia, do you have any favorite spots for fall colors? You know, again, every now and then, it depends on how wet the years are. Yeah, that those big leaf maple most of the times, big leaf maples are kind of like a brown, yellow. But every now and then, if you have a wet fall, one of the best places I saw for Lowcountry, for foliage, which just blew me away, was
moss lake. And it's a hike that it's a King County Park not too far from Duvall. It's a nice hike, a nice urban trail hike. It's something that wouldn't stand out mostly, but in October, I know what year the big leaf Maples were incredible there. Yeah, another place too. And this is kind of funny, because we're talking about the, you know, the Eastern deciduous, Eastern hardwood trees. If you really want to see some good color here, go to places where they grow here, and arboretums,
yeah? I mean, the Arboretum in, you know, Lake Washington, in Seattle, it's incredible, because they have a lot of these eastern hardwood trees, yeah, so that's one of the best places, yes, but yeah, it's same thing in Portland. You're gonna get the same type of thing. But yeah, again,
I've talked mentioned the gorge. You have more Oregon ash down in that area. You're gonna get some good color there too. But if it's a wet year, some of these trees, some of these areas that have solid, big leaf maples. Yeah, you're gonna get some color there. Yeah, I totally agree with you about the Washington Park Arboretum at the University of Washington. It's free. It has some beautiful fall color, probably some of the best in in the city of Seattle, for
sure. And I love that place in May too, because the rhododendrons. So if you want, yes, it's a great year round. Yeah, it is one of my favorite urban hikes. I also, you know, I feel like Larabee State Park near Bellingham has some pretty good, yeah, there's some maple. There's some decent maple. It depends on the year and what the weather has been like, but that often is a pretty nice place to you. I think, cool. Okay, well, I think that wraps up our fall hiking guide. So
happy hiking out there. Take advantage of this best season, and we'll see you next time you.