North Cascades Highway autumn
— the road the larches mark for gold.
Not only on a wall.
“State Route 20 climbs through North Cascades National Park between Marblemount and Mazama, the only east-west road across the range. In late September and early October the alpine larches above Washington Pass turn gold, and the slopes around Liberty Bell Mountain and the Early Winters Spires light up against the granite. Diablo Lake reads turquoise from glacial silt all summer, and a darker blue once the larches drop. The road climbs to 5,477 feet at Washington Pass before falling east toward the Methow Valley. The highway closes for winter most years by mid-November and opens again in May.
North Cascades Highway autumn, 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.
State Route 20, known as the North Cascades Highway, is the only east-west road through the North Cascades. It runs about 130 miles between Burlington in the Skagit Valley and Twisp in the Methow Valley, climbing across the range through North Cascades National Park and the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. The high point is Washington Pass at 5,477 feet, on the southern shoulder of Liberty Bell Mountain and the Early Winters Spires. The highway opened in 1972 after more than fifty years of survey and construction, and is closed each winter, typically from mid-November through April or May, when snow accumulation and avalanche risk make the upper section impassable.
The autumn colour on the highway comes from two species working together. The mountain hemlock and Douglas fir hold their green while the alpine larch, Larix lyallii, turns gold from late September through about the third week of October at higher elevations. Understory huckleberry adds carmine. The North Cascades National Park Service estimates peak larch colour at Washington Pass usually lands between September 25 and October 10, depending on the first frost. By early November the gold is gone and the snow is back; the highway closes for the season shortly after.
The autumn drive is usually open from about Mother's Day through Veteran's Day, depending on the year's snowpack. From Seattle, the Marblemount end of the highway is about two and a half hours by car; from Spokane, the Mazama end is closer to four hours. The Washington State Department of Transportation publishes opening and closing dates each season and runs avalanche-control closures in spring and late fall. The Diablo Lake overlook, the Washington Pass overlook above Liberty Bell Mountain, and the larch slopes between Rainy Pass and Washington Pass are the named pull-offs most photographers use.