Every once in a while, I do a hike that’s so great, I have to go back and do it again the same season. Copper Pass is one of those hikes. I visited twice this season, once in September and again in October, and was instantly in love with the place. There’s so much to see, with views in every direction and spectacular fall colors, and hardly a soul around. I love the kind of hike where you have a better chance of seeing a bear than another human, and although I didn’t see any bears on either of my trips this year, I was able to go for hours without seeing another person.

Of course, before you get your hopes up about visiting the promised land, you should know that access fucking sucks. The trails into this place are steep and poorly maintained, and by that, I mean lots of large blowdowns, erosion, bushwhacks, and the like. Slow, frustrating progress, in other words. It’s more akin to a scramble than a hike, and having those skills and routefinding skills is a prerequisite for success, both on the access trails and for exploring the pass proper. Although there are some ways in that are better than others, you’ll need to do your own research on that if you choose to go. I don’t think this place will ever become popular with the kids blasting music out of a Bluetooth speaker and hiking with nothing but a tiny Aquafina bottle.

But after you get past the shitty, steep access, the views open up, the grade eases, and it’s just enjoyable hiking for much of the way, at least until you reach the head end of the basin. Peaks surround you as you go - Stiletto, Blue Lake, Posthole. Peaks are visible in the distance as you climb - Rainy, Black, McGregor, Goode, and many others.

Black Peak shrouded in clouds in the distance. If you look carefully, you can see the Maple Pass trail on the ridge in front of it, and if you look really closely, you can see some hikers on it.

As you hike up the valley, Stiletto Peak dominates to your right. On the days I visited, it was in the shade most of the time, but it creates quite an imposing scene. Stiletto is actually several peaks with some subsidiary peaks (Switchblade, Jackknife) but it ultimately forms one long ridge. It certainly makes for an interesting backdrop!

The trail keeps a mostly gentle grade through meadows and stands of dark timber as it works its way towards the head of the valley. Eventually though, the last stand of timber gives way to a meadow with some isolated larch trees, and an awesome view down-valley back the way you came.

It’s here that the gentle grade eases, and the next set of climbing begins. From the head end of the valley to Copper Pass proper is only about 800 or 900 feet of gain, but it’s quite steep in places. Fortunately, the scenery is great and provides an easy distraction. In early fall, the berry bushes are bright red, and in larch season, there are a bunch of larch in this area scattered about. It’s better to do this section in the shade if you can, as it’s quite exposed and can get pretty hot in full sun.

Once at the pass though, the views open up into the Twisp River drainage, and the remote feel of the hike really sets in. There is a road at the bottom of the drainage, but when I visited, it was closed due to a fire and other damage, and so it was essentially wilderness. The distant ridges visible from here create a lot of interesting layers too. It’s a great spot to sit and watch a while.

From the pass, more explorations wait. An inviting looking stand of larch is visible just below the pass, and when I visited in October, I set off here to explore it and maybe find my way out to Stiletto Lake. There is a trail from here to Stiletto Lake, but it’s rather arduous, and routefinding was tricky. In fact, I never made it to the lake - there’s a large obstacle that requires effort and planning to get around. I ran into a couple of parties that made it through, but as I was solo and only out for the day, I decided that time wasn’t in my favor to attempt it, and so focused my energy on the larch I could access in the basin.

Looking back towards Copper Pass from my own private larch basin.

One really cool thing about the larch in this area is that there are a lot of tall, old-growth trees. For the altitude, I was a bit surprised to see so many. A lot of the famous “larch march” hikes in and around the area have much shorter trees, due to the shorter growing season and the tough weather, but here, I found multiple stands of tall, old-growth larch. I actually wonder if they are Western Larch and not Alpine Larch, but I’m not a tree expert, so I don’t know for sure.

What I think I appreciated most about the larch in this area was the variety. Tall, short. Old-growth, young trees. Deep yellow, a little green. Isolated, dense stands. In a lot of other areas, the trees all kind of look the same, and that’s great, but it’s also fun to have a lot of variety in one area. It allowed me to get a wide variety of different shots of the trees as you can see above and below.

Since I had skipped Stiletto Lake and had a little bit more time than I was anticipating, I decided to head back to the pass and explore the area on the other side of the pass. I had read about a tarn above the creek that flows into the main basin, and wondered if I could find it. It wasn’t very hard to find, given that there’s a maze of social trails in the area and just following the obvious route led me right to it. I think the views were the best from here, as the tarn is in a unique position that offers a distant view of Goode, the tallest peak in North Cascades National Park.

Admittedly, I didn’t get the best light for this location, but it was still fun to shoot and visit. I’ll have to come back another time and optimize that visit around getting better light.

Unfortunately for my knees, what goes up must come down, so after visiting the beautiful area at and around the pass, the steep slope below it must be descended. Mercifully the section below that is relatively flat for many miles, which offered my knees a break, but then the shitty access trails make them angry all over again. There is a silver lining though - in this deep, dark, and steep forested section, there’s an absolute cornucopia of mushrooms. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different mushrooms in one spot. There were hundreds of mushrooms of all different sizes and colors, right by the trail. They are a lot of fun to look for and photograph!

That’s just a sampling of the mushrooms that are on offer. One annoying thing though is that despite the fact that access sucks, there are apparently enough people coming through here that knock over the mushrooms as they walk by. I don’t mind people picking mushrooms, but why knock over the non-edible ones and leave them? It’s kind of like a wildflower, and I think you should leave it for everyone to enjoy. On both days I visited, mushrooms that were standing on the way in were knocked over on the way out, which was really disappointing to see.

Copper Pass is a hike that’s going to be on my itinerary for a while. Despite visiting twice this year, I’ve only barely scratched the surface of the opportunities out there. More exploration is definitely warranted!

Journal

Copper Pass