Okanogan National Forest

September 2002

Golden Horn peak is in the Okanogan National Forest in North Central Washington. It can be reached from North Cascades Highway via Porcupine Creek or Cutthroat Creek. Our route was via Porcupine.

Our goal was to camp the first night near high and dry Granite Pass around seven miles in, then spend a second night at Snowy Lakes about four miles further. The third day would bring us all the way back out the same way.

The hike up Porcupine breaks from the forest about a third of the way up, passes a nice waterfall, a campsite or two, then ends at Cutthroat Pass. The view back down Porcupine is towards Corteo-Black-Fisher Peaks, with a peek of glacierclad Dome Peak (?) in the far distance...

At Cutthroat Pass (6800’) you look east-southeast towards Silver Star Mountain and Liberty Bell, poking their heads above a jagged ridgeline separating Cutthroat Lake from the North Cascades Highway. Two thousand feet below is Cutthroat Lake. To the south is Cutthroat Peak (7865')...

At Granite Pass you get magnificent views of The Needles, Tower Peak, Golden Horn, and Mt Hardy. Looking down Swamp Creek leads to spectacular views of pointy Ragged Ridge, near Mt Arriva and Mesahchie Peak (I believe …don’t count on me for mapping)…

After a great, sunny, and warm first day, we awoke the next morning to howling winds rising from the Swamp Creek valley. It was in the mid-40’s late into the morning. Snowy Lakes appeared socked in by dark rain clouds. We had two options: continue on to Snowy Lakes, hoping the weather would break (but dreading a cold horizontal rain and claustrophobic afternoon in a tent if it didn’t); or head back out. Staying put wasn’t an option since the camp was late-summer bone dry and we were nearly out of water. So we opted for the trip back out, staying a couple of steps ahead of the rain. As it turns out, this was a good choice. The rest of the long weekend turned rainy, even in the lowlands. The next day we took a short daytrip to Blue Lake, on the south side of Rainy Pass...

Panorama from Granite Pass