North Cascades National Park

Only about three hours from Seattle lies one of the wildest and least-visited national parks in the contiguous United States. North Cascades National Park protects about 789 square miles (2,043 km²) of jagged peaks, deep valleys and old-growth forest in northern Washington, and nearly all of it is the Stephen Mather Wilderness. The surrounding park complex holds more than 300 glaciers, more than any other U.S. park area outside Alaska. Its highest summit is 9,220-foot (2,810 m) Goode Mountain, and the range shows more than 9,000 feet (2,700 m) of relief.

Congress established the park on October 2, 1968, together with Ross Lake and Lake Chelan national recreation areas, which divide and border its north and south units. Most visitors see the park from State Route 20, the North Cascades Highway, which follows the Skagit River through the recreation area between the two units and is closed by snow for much of the winter. Trails lead to Cascade Pass, a route used by Native peoples for thousands of years, where archeologists have found stone tools about 9,600 years old.

• The Cascade Range
  A chain of volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest located in
• Washington
  The Evergreen State, the wet and dry sides of the Cascades located in
• Seattle
  A Pacific Northwest city between sound and lake near
• Crater Lake National Park
  Oregon’s only national park, around the deepest lake in the U.S. related
• Mount Rainier National Park
  Wildflower meadows beneath a great Cascade volcano related