9-17-23  Well the fire blew up again with several days of hot summer weather.  So far the North Cascades Pass is still open however. Here is a shot from yesterday...click on this link-- Sourdough Fire 9-17

Wonderful surprise this morning in the New York Times -- an article on Fire Lookouts.  Please see: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/climate/wildfire-lookouts-fire-towers.htm This article may be behind a paywall so hopefully many of you are NYT subscribers...........  Desolation Peak and Jack Kerouac are mentioned........ bruce

Has reopened again as of this morning 🙂, there is now an additional fire along the Pass east of Sourdough around Blue Lake

Highway 20 was closed again the other day. The north unit of North Cascades Park is still shut down, campgrounds, boat traffic......... They did get my old LO wrapped ---Sourdough.  Yahoo !!  Thank heavens  : ) ------- I staffed that LO twice in the past and I am emotionally attached. Incredible views up there......  Hopefully [...]

8-9-23  Highway 20 which is the North Cascades Pass has been closed for several days because of the Sourdough Fire.  It was been reopened.  So you will be able to access the East Bank Trailhead.

8-5-2023   Unfortunately they have closed the North Cascades Pass between Newhalem and Rainey Pass.  So there is no easy way to get to Desolation presently  i.e.  the water taxi not operating, you can't rent a resort boat and can't get to the East Bank Trailhead......   If you are really determined you could come [...]

About a week ago lightning started a fire on the west side of Sourdough at the south end of the lake.  This fire has grown to 3000 acres+ and has caused the NPS to shut down all boat traffic on Ross Lake and Ross Lake Resort to close.  SO they only way right now to [...]

7-10-23  Ross Lake is about 17 feet down ---that is lower than usual / full pool.  This means that the Dock at Desolation is probably high and dry.  You will need to land on the dirt and drag the boat up a ways to secure it if using one of the Resort rental boats.  I [...]

On the westside of Ross Lake is one of those memorable names --> Skymo.  There is a mountain, a lake and a stream by that name.  I only know one person who has been up to the lake and tried fishing -- Jeff Johnson ---who was the North Cascades Fish Biologist for the USFS ( [...]

Here is a shot taken from a helicopter at the south end of Ross Lake --looking north uptake toward the Desolation Fire: And here is what it looked like down at lake level: And finally here is a shot from Desolation courtesy Jim of a fire over in the Pasayten Wilderness: