North Cascades National Park: Finding Larches

When I visited the North Cascades for a backpacking trip two years ago, I was shocked by the size of the mountains, and overall beauty. I felt like I was in Patagonia.

The mountain ranges are massive and vast up there, with endless trails to explore. It could be renamed WOWshington because I found myself saying WOW at every single corner.

Seeing the larch trees turn golden has been on my bucket list for a while now, so I was excited to see my treehouse booking was at the tail end of larch season.

Larch trees are in the deciduous conifers that grow in certain parts of the world, and the North Cascades National Park happens to be one of them. Infamous for being called “larch march,” due to the amount of people who travel to see this show in nature.

In this blog post I will cover what we did, where we stayed, and share my personal experiences. Let’s get into it!

The Pond Perch

Located in Concrete, WA and completed in 2020, the Pond Perch is a treehouse perched above its own personal pond. Located in a neighborhood, Treehouse Junction has two treehouses on site, but it is hard to see them with how thick the forest is between the two.

Inside there are two full sized beds, one being a murphy bed that pulls out from the wall. A flushing toilet, sink for handwashing, and fireplace gave us enough room to cook our own food and enjoy the rain from the deck. A refrigerator and microwave were a nice touch too.

A short walk in front of the treehouse is the Bird Bath, which is a heated building with a shower.

Some might consider this glamping, but it wasn’t far off from a cabin stay for me.

Concrete is a great basecamp for exploring Mount Baker Wilderness and North Cascade National Park.

On the second night of our treehouse stay we did a hike close to the AirBNB, Baker Lake Trail.

We finished early and set out to explore the town of Concrete, named after you guessed it, Concrete itself when concrete factories were here to build the dams.

My friend was familiar with Birdsview Brewing for burgers but we saved that for dinner. We found a winery in the area Glacier Peak Winery. We should have listened to Google reviews on this one. People described their experience as awkward, awful, and weird.

We showed up to a completely silent winery with a woman who showed zero interest in having us there to taste wine. Awkward and weird it was…but we drove 20 minutes to drink wine so… we toughed it out.

The wine wasn’t bad and it was a beautiful setting nonetheless. By far the strangest and worst customer service I have received at a winery in the Pacific Northwest.

After that experience we needed a cocktail. On our way I drove past this extremely tiny church…and decided to take a look inside. Check out my Tiktok video…couldn’t help myself and had to add music. The “Wildwood Chapel”  was built in 1950 and is still used for weddings and events.

We stopped at Longhorn bar for some cocktails in downtown Concrete. After that we headed to Birdviews Brewery for live music and burgers. It is only a 5 minute drive from the Pond’s Perch, and it’s a yurt! You won’t get french fries with your burger here though, Cool Ranch Doritos as they can’t have a deep fryer in the yurt.

@itsloganmarie

Chances of this chapel in the middle of nowhere being haunted? ##hauntedtiktok

♬ Pink Soldiers – 23

Blue Lake Trail

Distance: 4.6 miles out and back

Elevation: 921 Feet

Blue Lake is an easily accessible trail off Mountain Loop Highway in the North Cascades. It is quite popular in all seasons for good reason. They do close the highway in the winter once enough snow falls. We just so happen to catch it as the seasons collided.

This is one of the easiest hikes in the North Cascades to see the larch trees. We hiked it on a Thursday and didn’t have a problem parking our car in the lot. Other times parking can be troublesome, especially on the weekends and warm days.

Since I knew it could be snowing I packed my microspikes for the hike and wore layers. I have to listen to the advice of “be bold, start cold,” as I was quickly ripping layers off.

We started to see Liberty Bell Mountain as we hiked through the trees and were greeted with the beautiful larch trees close to the lake. The fresh dusting of snow made everything absolutely magical.

Diablo Lake

Diablo Lake is part of the lake system in the North Cascades that provides power to Seattle. It is infamous for the blue water. As you drive up into the mountains, there is a pull off and sign for Diablo Lake viewing area. Here you can see the gorge of water that pours into the man made reservoir.

This area is home to Sauk Suiattle and Nlaka’pamux tribes who were fisherman, gatherers, and hunters in the region. Sauk-Suiattle Indian people traveled by canoe to the Puget sound to harvest shellfish and saltwater fish that they could not find in the mountains.

The reservoir is part of the Skagit River Hydroelectric project which was created in 1917 when the area was colonized by non-Indian settlers in 1880s.

To learn more about the history of the area, I use the app Native Land when I am traveling.

I would love to come back in the summer and SUP board around this lake. The color of the lake in the spring after winter snow melt is supposed to be the best.

Diablo Lake Trail is a 7.5 mile out and back hike around the lake with 1,538 feet of elevation gain-we did not do this hike but from what people have told me views from the lake are best at the viewpoint if you’re short on time.

@itsloganmarie

It gets easier 💛 ##mentalhealthmatters

♬ original sound – Joey Kidney

Baker Lake Trail

Twenty minutes from our treehouse was Baker Lake Trail. It was an extremely rainy day so we didn’t commit to the full 13 mile hike, so we hike for a couple hours instead. We were blown away by the fall colors on the trail.

We saw quite a few campsites for backpackers along the lake. I would love to come back on a clear day to see the mountain views. Nonetheless the colors were stunning!

@itsloganmarie

Kept the rain audio on for this one 🌧 ##pnwfall

♬ original sound – Art Martinez

When visiting this area it is hard to choose what to do with your time. The good thing is, depending on your skill level and amount of time you have, there is an adventure for you. It is possible to see the beauty of the North Cascades just by driving up Mountain Loop Highway.

Hikes that are on my list that I didn’t get to to this time:

Maple Pass (7.4 miles)

Sourdough Mountain (10.5 miles)

Anderson and Watson Lake (5.9 miles)

Park Butte Lookout (7.2 miles)

I advise checking with local ranger stations before visiting this area. Roads and conditions can quickly alter the safeness of the adventure on trail and to the trail. For example when we were reading about doing some of these hikes there were rock slides happening due to freezing and warming of the ground. Washington Trails Association is also a great website to get most recent trail beta.

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