Rainy Pass and Surroundings

As Washington Highway 20 nears the crest of the Cascades, it enters a region of stark granite pinnacles and dense forests that thrive on frequent rains and fogs. The highway crosses two divides here: from the west, Rainy Pass, which leads into the valley of Bridge Creek, a tributary of the Stehekin River that ultimately pours its waters into Lake Chelan, then the even higher divide of Washington Pass, where the Early Winters Spires guard the rim of the Methow River watershed, which drains eastward into the Columbia River. The ranges seen from the road offer some of the most awe-inspiring scenery in the North Cascades. These are prime recreation lands; the timber is so spindly here that loggers have never bothered with it, and the rather marginal lodes of precious metals played out years ago. Nonetheless, the lands surrounding Rainy Pass inexplicably were declared to be unfit for national park status. Today, the area falls within an unprotected portion of the Okanogan National Forest, which has thus far done a fine job of preserving the wild character of the landscape.

The landscape here is defined by a geologic feature known as the Golden Horn Batholith. Batholith is Latin for “sea of stone”; the formation originated millions of years ago as a huge upwelling of molten rock through faults in the Earth’s crust, which cooled below the surface. As the magma cooled and hardened into granitic rock, it contracted and vertical cracks or joints developed. These joints weakened the stone, and over the course of eons, frost shattering has exploited the vertical weaknesses in the rock. In this way, erosion has chiseled away at the great batholith to create towering walls and sharp stone needles.

As the Golden Horn granite cooled, some of the cracks in the newly forged bedrock were infused with mineral-rich, superheated water. This process resulted in the formation of veins of quartz in the bedrock, and some of these veins contained substantial quantities of gold and silver. Later, erosion would carry granules and small nuggets of gold away from the mother lode and down into the streams and rivers. As the goldfields of California played out, prospectors moved north along the mountains, and in the 1880s they found gold in the stream gravels of this remote corner of the North Cascades. News spread quickly, and a flurry of mining activity and stock speculation ensued. A few got rich, but most went broke. When gold was discovered in the Klondike, most of the Cascades miners abandoned their claims and journeyed north. Today, the ruins of old gold and silver mines can still be found to the north of WA 20, on the mountainsides of the Canyon Creek drainage.

Modern visitors will find that the real treasure of the Golden Horn is still here in abundance: a collection of fine day hikes that lead into an inspiring landscape of high peaks. Backpackers will discover that well-built trails also lead south down Bridge Creek into North Cascades National Park, where backcountry permits are required.

Services near Rainy Pass are nonexistent; the nearest place to get gas and supplies is Mazama, on the Methow River. It is 11 miles farther to Winthrop, the first real town. Traveling west from Rainy Pass, it is 38 miles to the company store at Newhalem and an additional 13 miles to Marblemount for gas and groceries. Roadside campgrounds also are hard to come by: The nearest Forest Service campground is 6 miles east of Washington Pass, and westbound travelers will have to drive 27 miles from Rainy Pass to reach Colonial Campground, which is run by the National Park Service. For more information, stop at the Forest Service visitor center in Winthrop.