Hiking to Fire Lookouts in the Cascades

[Aaron Zagrodnick]

Washington's Cascades have an unfriendly reputation. Unlike the Rockies and Sierra, whose alpine basins and gentle saddles allow for easy travel, the Cascades are a maze of serrated ridges and deep, heavily-forested valleys containing swift-flowing rivers. While miners built high roads in Colorado in the 1800s that now service trailheads, most Cascades trailheads are in valley bottoms barely above sea level, deep in the dense coastal forest. The crux of a climb is often escaping 4,000 feet of the "green hell" to reach the alpine. However, while it is certainly possible to find a surfeit of suffering in the Cascades, it can also be avoided...

@seano details some scenic hikes to lookouts in the Cascades - read the full article in Issue 27:

Hiking to Lookouts in the Washington Cascades

Issue 27 Page 1