The Best Hike We Never Did!

Ya you read the title of this blog post right. Im going to share our favorite hike in Washington that we never did. Now that sentence isn’t entirely false because we did the start of the hike. Well kinda. Let’s go back to the beginning. Cascade Pass and Shale Arm Trail is a very popular hike in Washington state for many reasons.

Explore this 12.1-mile out-and-back trail near Marblemount, Washington. Generally considered a challenging route, it takes an average of 8 h 48 min to complete. This is a very popular area for camping, hiking, and running, so you'll likely encounter other people while exploring. The best times to visit this trail are May through October. You'll need to leave pups at home — dogs aren't allowed on this trail. Now you can see they recommend you do this hike starting in May. Here is where I strongly disagree. Logan my brother and I did this hike May 1, 2022 and it was completely covered in snow. To the point where we couldn't even get to the trail head without hiking in knee deep of snow for about 2.5 ish miles. If you love the snow and have the equipment and clothing for it then go for it but unfortunately we did not and we were not prepared. And for some reason we tried it anyways.

So we hike the miles in the deep snow from the car parking lot to the trail head. On this little hike just trying to make it to the actual trail we only came across one other hiker in jeans and sneakers and he gave us some insight on what’s to come. He basically said that the entire trail is under a lot of snow and the closer you get to the trail head the deeper the snow gets. So we decided to continue on to just make it to the trail head. And I think at this point we felt like we at least had to make it there because we had already gone this far. So we were determined. As our hike went on you see in the video I posted that we saw many avalanches and it was something we have never experienced before being from Florida. Once we make it to the trail head we had stopped there because the trees had cleared out some and the mountains were just insane. At the time we had no idea were we stopped for lunch was actually the original parking lot to the trail head because it was cover in a few feet of snow. So we just sat how on the snow and watched the avalanches all around us. After lunch we were realizing it was around noon and we haven't even started the hike although we had been hiking for the past few hours. After being soaked from the snow and not having the right snow gear and knowing it was going to get worse as we started the hike we felt like it was a better decision to head back down to the car. As much as this sucked because we didn’t even do the hike we felt like we kinda did. We were climbing over the collapsed road and trekking in think snow and seeing the avalanches we did feel like we experienced a lot and were happy with our decision. So if you're still reading this to the end my only advice is if you want to do this hike just wait later in the season to do it. Maybe you will actually get to do the hike!