The Great Drive: North Cascades Highway

Start at the intersection of Highways 20 and 530.

MILE 3
Cascadian Farm
You can find organic granola and frozen vegetables from this farm in stores, but the cherry-red farm stand sells fresh blueberries and strawberries and homemade, organic ice cream. cascadianfarm.com

MILE 6 
The Eatery and Skagit River Resort
If you miss the annual road-opening treats (see below), visit Tootsie Clark’s family restaurant and cabins for meal-sized cinnamon rolls and comfortable multiroom cabins. northcascades.com 

MILE 6
Glacier Peak Winery
Taste as many as nine wines in a single go (for a $5 fee) from a Burgundy–trained winemaker who grows his own pinot noir grapes. glacierpeakwinery.com

 
MILE 8
Que Car BBQ
The smoke wafts up from a red caboose parked in Marblemount, exuding the smell of pork ribs, brisket, and a meat masterpiece known as Momma’s Meatloaf Beefwich. quecarbbq.com

MILE 8
Cascade River Road
The 23-mile road spur leads to two national forest campgrounds (and private ones when those are full) and the Cascade Pass trailhead parking lot at the road’s end. Brake for bears!  

MILE 22 
North Cascades Visitor Center 
Find all the trail info, relief maps, and clean bathrooms we expect from an official national park welcome building. nps.gov/noca/planyourvisit

MILE 23
Newhalem
Welcome to the orderly company town that abuts the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project, a series of three dams that provides Seattle with power. Also produced here: homemade fudge at the 91-year-old Skagit General Store. Kids can climb an old steam engine and a light show illuminates Ladder Creek Falls from dusk until midnight. Look for walking tour brochures at the Skagit Information Center. seattle.gov/light/tours/skagit 

MILE 25
Gorge Creek Falls 
Park and cross the pedestrian bridge for a misty waterfall view less than a quarter mile away, and keep an eye out for ravens and crows. 

MILE 29
Diablo Dam
Drive right past sentrylike streetlamps and across the 83-year-old structure or book a boat tour of the area online—a guide will point out where the first Seattle City Light supervisor infested an island with monkeys. seattle.gov/light/tours/skagit/boat

MILE 29
North Cascades Environmental Learning Center
You must be a part of a multiday program, like a digital wildflower photography weekend for adults or a family naturalist weekend, to stay at the lakeside lodge; day visitors can take a self-guided tour. ncascades.org

 
MILE 36
Ross Lake Resort
You’ve got to work for this hotel check-in: Park, hike a mile to the Ross Lake shore, then call for the boat to take you to the floating cabins with killer views and fishing. rosslakeresort.com

MILE 37
Ross Lake Overlooks
The giant 23-mile-long lake that cleaves the North Cascade National Park is actually a reservoir formed by the Ross Dam; boats can access its trout-filled waters via Diablo Lake.

MILE 40
Ruby Creek 
There are nature education signs at this view pullout, but look up to take in one last view of the North Cascades National Park—you’re about to exit into the equally wild Okanagan National Forest.

MILE 64
Washington Pass Overlook
Once you’re over this 5,477-foot pass, you’re truly in Eastern Washington, as both the colors (more browns and tans) and vegetation (golden larches are magnificent in early fall) attest.

 
MILE 80
Freestone Inn
The swankiest sleep on Highway 20 is in this lodge adorned with log porches outside and a stone fireplace indoors; a heli-skiing outfit operates out of the recreation center. freestoneinn.com

MILE 82
The Mazama Store
This small-town general store sells everything from espresso to homemade doughnuts to kitchen tools; it has an outdoor sports store and picnic tables out back. themazamastore.com

 
MILE 82
Rolling Huts
Stay in the prettiest trailers you’ll ever see reimagined as modern cabins, each with a wood-burning fireplace and all positioned as a “herd” in a large field just off the highway. rollinghuts.com

 
MILE 94
Sheri’s Sweet Shoppe 
Welcome to Winthrop, the Old West town that has had the wooden sidewalks and rectangular storefronts only since the 1970s; the shop dishes candy and 40 flavors of ice cream. sherissweetshoppe.com

Tootsie’s Road

Here’s what it takes to open the North Cascades Highway every spring, unearthing it from under 10 to 75 feet of snow: four to six weeks of work. A WSDOT crew of 12, attacking the snow from east and west. Avalanche spotters. Mack truck–size Kodiak snow blowers. And a nonagenarian named Madrene “Tootsie” Clark.

This general path has been a Native American hunting byway, a trapper route, a gold prospector’s trail, a wagon road, and finally, in 1972, a state highway. Since the 1980s, Clark has been present for every annual opening, handing out giant square cinnamon rolls to drivers parked on the west-side gate just above Ross Lake.

Clark has lived along this highway for 91 years (or so; she claims “I’ve lied so much about my age, I forget how old I am”). Her father operated a sawmill on the Rockport property that is now her family’s Skagit River Resort and the Eatery. Clark used to wake up at 2am on opening day and still wears her signature fire–engine-red satin jacket; now she supervises her son, Don, from her walker as he rolls dough for 90 sticky pastries on opening day. She goads him, saying, “We should be up there by now!” as early as 5am.

She’s no longer the first to arrive, since cars start lining up at the gate at milepost 134 well before sunrise, but a family friend uses his massive pickup to reserve her spot. Regular attendees make a beeline for the trunk of Clark’s wide black Cadillac, where Clark’s granddaughter pours coffee and dishes out cinnamon rolls in Styrofoam bowls. 

Later arrivals are surprised, but all too happy to accept the freebie; Clark teases newcomers, promising, “There are only 10 calories per roll!” (Try something like 10,000. Per bite.) By early afternoon, about 40 cars are waiting in line, the most recent comers looking downright befuddled at the quarter-mile-long tailgate.

At 1pm, WSDOT workers arrive and all know the routine: Unlock the gate and wait, as Clark, absent her walker for the first time all day, slowly pushes it open. The caravan races up the newly bare road to Washington Pass, where Granny Winthrop (Georgia Sanders of the Winthrop Chamber of Commerce, replete in long dress and Old West bonnet) pulls up for a kind of meeting of the matriarchs.

Opening day takes place as early as March and as late as June, depending on when the snow melts, and Clark is one of the first to hear when WSDOT names the date. The annual tradition isn’t about advertising her business, she claims, though the rolls are a popular daily staple at the Eatery. “Anytime you can give something to the public, they remember you and they come back,” she says.

Published: August 2013

Published in the Complete Guide to the North Cascades and Lake Chelan issue of Seattle Met.