Cascade Mountain Overnight

Other adventures in the Never Summer Range: 
Category: Colorado (Never Summer Wilderness)Elev: 12,303 ft
Dates: June 16&17, 2023 (Fri&Sat)Trip Report #: 620Partner: Nate Arganbright

Cascade Mountain (Never Summers Overnight) (~12 miles, 1 summit, overnight)

Spending the night in the mountains and tagging a summit.

Intro

Nate and I were itching to get out into the mountains overnight. The forecast didn't look great for Saturday, but we thought we could hike in a few miles Friday after work, camp overnight, and catch a morning window to meander over some summits before hiking out and beating the rain. Not wanting to pay for or use valuable overnight permit days, we decided the Never Summer Wilderness would be a good place for our short overnight adventure. 

The Never Summer Wilderness encompasses a total of 21,090 acres and shares its eastern boundary with Rocky Mountain National Park. The wilderness includes diverse landscapes from forested ridges to steep tundra ranging in elevation from 8,900 to 12,520 feet. True to its name, the Never Summer Wilderness receives large amounts of rain and snow and provides water to three major rivers: the Colorado, the North Platte, and the Cache la Poudre. The Never Summer Wilderness has multiple trails that lead up gulches, through passes, over summits, and traverse portions of the Continental Divide. 

We left Friday after work and drove over Trail Ridge Road. It was quite foggy and wet on the east side, but as we crossed over the Continental Divide, we drove out of the fog and were treated to a beautiful mountain vista on the west side. Just past the town of Grand Lake, we turned west onto a dirt road and drove to the North Supply Trailhead. We hiked a few miles up the trail (the hike was pretty interesting, since this area was burned in the 2020 East Troublesome Fire that raged through Rocky Mountain National Park), and found a nice campsite right on the crest Blue Ridge. We enjoyed a pleasant evening, happy to not be under the dark clouds that covered RMNP to the east. The plan for Saturday was to capture a morning weather window (rain was forecasted for Saturday afternoon) and do a 9-mile loop over Cascade and Ruby Mountains to Bowen Pass, then down to Bowen Lake and then back up to Blue Ridge where our camp was. But we woke up in a cold cloud and low visibility. This did not bode well for our traverse plans. Darn it. But I was set on getting to the top of something, and Cascade Mountain 2.5 miles from our camp seemed like an appropo target for a very North-Cascades-like day. Nate wasn't as inspired. So I headed out alone. Needless to say I didn't get any views but I got to the summit. But this was better than nothing—some extra exercise and the requisite objective to spin a trip report! I hustled back to camp, and we quickly packed up and hiked out (thanks Nate for pre-packing my sleeping stuff to make exiting camp go even faster). We got back to the car just as the rain began to fall out of the sky. We stopped in Grand Lake so Nate could get a delicious-looking elk burger at Sagebrush BBQ & Grill, after which we drove back to Estes Park over the always stunning Trail Ridge Road.

Below is a trip report for our short overnight + summit (Steph) + burger (Nate) adventure. Enjoy!

Map

PHOTOS

Drive from Estes Park to the North Supply Trailhead over Trail Ridge Road

When: Friday after work   •    Distance: 65 miles   •    Time: 2 hours 15 minutes 

Beginning the drive over Trail Ridge Road, socked in on the east side.
Driving along the Continental Divide on Trail Ridge Road, now above the fog.
Still a fair bit of snow in the plow areas.
Driving Trail Ridge Road down towards Grand Lake. Nicer weather on the west side today (this is not always the case).
Driving through the area that was ravaged by the 2020 East Troublesome fire, one of the largest wildfires in state history.
Driving the dirt road to the North Supply Trailhead.
Post-fire sign on the dirt road to the North Supply Trailhead.
At the North Supply Trailhead.

Hike in a few miles and establish camp on Blue Ridge

When: Friday evening   •    Distance: ~3 miles   •    Time: 1 hour 15 minutes 

Starting the hike.
Bridge along the trail.
A post-fire trail sign.
The soil is coming back to life, a little under three years since the fire.
A field of marsh marigolds.
Marsh marigold.
Yellow flower. Not sure what kind. They were in the same envirnment at the marsh marigolds.
There was a thick snowfield sitting on top of the ridge.
Surmounting the snowfield to gain Blue Ridge.
A snow highway on Blue Ridge.
Simple beauty.
A view of Cascade Mountain. The app I am using on my phone is called Peakfinder, and it is pretty useful for identifyng mountains on the skyline.
Hiking along Blue Ridge.
Hiking along Blue Ridge, after the snowfield and beginning to look for a place to camp.
View towards Cascade Mountain from near where we camped.
Forget-me-nots.
Setting up camp. We camped on a high point on Blue Ridge.
No shortage of water up here.
Enjoying a pleasant evening at camp. We had expected it to rain so this was a nice treat.
Nate warming his tortilla over his stove.
Camp Photo #1. Looking west. Photo by Nate.
Camp Photo #2. Looking west. Photo by Steph.
Camp Photo #3. Looking east. Photo by Nate.
Camp Photo #3. Looking east. Photo by Steph.
Nate's last Coffee Crisp. (My mom had sent me home with a few of these for Nate after I visited then in Canada in February. Thanks mom!)
Tent view.
Location of our camp on Blue Ridge. It is always a treat to camp at altitude.

Hike to top of Cascade Mountain from camp under very North Cascades conditions

When: Saturday morning   •    Distance: ~2.7 miles   •    Time: 2 hours 5 minutes

We woke up to fog and clouds. Darn it.
Pretty socked in. Very North Cascade conditions. Cascade Mountain sounds like an appropo objective....
Hiking on the trail to Cascade Mountain.
This area was burned by the East Troublesome Fire of 2020.
Sign at a junction for Bowen Lake (right) and Cascade Mountain (left).
The trail was faint at times but there was an occasional cairn to know I was following the common route.
View from the summit area of Cascade Mountain. More North Cascades vibes.
Yep, I am on top! (Visibility was down to 100 feet at times up here, so without the gps and map on my phone, I could have easily mistaked a false summit for the true summit.)
Headed back down the ridge.
Hoar frost. Temperatures had hit freezing up here overnight. Unusually cool for mid-June, even at this elevation.
Pasque flower hunkering down in the cool weather.
I think these are silky phaceila, looking not as peppy as usual due to a coating of ice.
Forget-me-nots. Shoe for scale shows how small these flowers are.
White flowers. According to my Colorado wildflowers app, these may be Fendler's pennycress.
According to my Colorado wildflowers app, the tiny white flowers are Pygmy flowers. The yellow flowers are alpine avens, which are quite common here.

Hike out and burger stop

When: Saturday morning   •    Distance: ~3 miles   •    Time:  1 hour  

Hiking out. Can we beat the rain?
Muddy!
The rain started just as we got back to the trailhead. Just in time!
It was just before noon when we arrived in Grand Lake on the drive back to Estes Park. Nate had been talking about how tasty the burgers are at Sagebrush BBQ & Grill, so we stopped and got him one.

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