Glacier Peak Wilderness

July 2002

Green Mountain is in the Glacier Peak Wilderness in Washington’s North Cascades. The photos shown here were taken on a spectacular day hike taken in August 2002. I had been up here one time before, but that was long ago in the early 1990’s. I had some vague memories of the place, but not many. Mostly what I remembered about the first hike was the lookout on top, which I seem to recall was in decent shape at the time.

It’s surprising I hadn’t remembered this hike more. The panoramic view from the peak is stunning; it is literally 360o around. I was a little better prepared on this more recent trip. Prepared in the sense that over the intervening years I had studied my maps and visited nearby peaks, so I knew the terrain I was looking much better than before.

The Ptarmigan Traverse region is visible from end-to-end in a panoramic vista from the top of Green Mountain. The traverse is a famous high-alpine (and alpinist) traverse, typically taken from Cascade Pass on the northern end to the Downey Creek drainage off of the southwest flank of Dome Peak.

This section of view from Green Mountain is very similar to the one from Hidden Lake Peaks, located about 30 miles north. But, whereas from Hidden Lake Peak one looks across to the Traverse region from a northwestern vantage, one looks to it from the summit of Green Mountain from a southwestern perspective.

Click on the image of Dome peak on the top of this page to view a panorama of the Ptarmigan Traverse region. The linked panorama attempts to identify many of the peaks.

On this return trip to Green Mountain we found the lookout to be in sorry shape. I believe the Forest Service has since removed it temporarily for restoration purposes.

Also, the other common feature remembered from both trips is that we saw a bear each time. The first time was a rather large, brown-hued bear roaming the meadows below us as we descended. This time we witnessed a teenage bear galloping down a creek bed, spooked after he spotted several hikers on the trail...