Glacier Peak from White Pass
— the volcano you can't drive to.
Not only on a wall.
“Glacier Peak is the only one of Washington's five great Cascade volcanoes that cannot be seen from a highway. White Pass on the Pacific Crest Trail sits about twenty-two miles north of Stevens Pass, a long day's walk through meadow and heather. The view opens at the saddle, the peak suddenly close, snow on its shoulders into late August. The ridge holds wildflowers in July and a quiet at sunset that you only earn on foot. Hikers sometimes camp early so they can watch the alpenglow land on the summit before turning in.
Glacier Peak from White Pass, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Glacier Peak rises to 10,541 feet in Snohomish County, the most remote of Washington's five major Cascade volcanoes and the fourth-highest mountain in the state. It stands inside the Glacier Peak Wilderness, designated by Congress under the Wilderness Act of 1964 and administered by the Mt. Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest. No road comes within twenty miles of its base. White Pass, at about 5,900 feet, is a saddle on the Pacific Crest Trail roughly twenty-two miles north of Stevens Pass, often reached as a two- or three-day walk from the trailhead. The pass marks the southern approach to the Glacier Peak country and frames the volcano across the upper White River drainage.
The pass holds the kind of quiet that only comes when the nearest road is a long day away. The Pacific Crest Trail crosses White Pass on a 2,650-mile spine that runs from the Mexican border to the Canadian, and northbound thru-hikers in August are the most reliable company. Marmots whistle from the talus on the north side. Glacier Peak last erupted around 1700, an event the U.S. Geological Survey has read from ash layers across eastern Washington and Idaho. On a still evening the only sound is wind on the heather and the creek a thousand feet below.
The pass is reliably snow-free from mid-July through early October. Earlier than that, the snowpack lingers on the north-side traverse and the route is best left to skiers. The northbound Pacific Crest Trail thru-hiker bubble reaches this stretch in late August. Mosquitoes are heavy through July; the wildflower display peaks the same week. By late September the larch turn gold farther east in the Glacier Peak Wilderness and the high meadows take their autumn colour. Snow returns by the end of October. The Mt. Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest publishes trail conditions for the area in season.