This Washington Scenic Byway Is The Road Trip Of A Lifetime

The Cascade Loop is one of the great drives in Washington, a 440-mile circle that the U.S. Department of Transportation named a National Scenic Byway in 2021. It strings together three of the state's own scenic routes, and along the way you cross from the salt water of Puget Sound to the dry orchard country east of the Cascade Range. A ferry ride bookends the trip, and the mountains carry snow well into spring. Winter travel gets dicey, so most drivers wait for the wildflowers of late spring or the gold larches of fall. Whale sightings off the ferry run best in late summer.

Day 1: Mukilteo to Leavenworth

Mukilteo sits on the water just south of Everett, and it works as the loop's unofficial start whether you drive in or roll off the ferry from Whidbey Island. From there the route runs north through Everett, crosses the Snohomish River, and threads past Lake Tye Park in Monroe, a 42-acre pond ringed by ballfields. About 50 minutes on, the Great Northern & Cascade Railway keeps a short heritage line running in Skykomish, on the South Fork Skykomish River. On Saturdays between May and October, its free 10-minute miniature train rides make an easy leg-stretch before the climb.

Beyond Skykomish, Stevens Pass Highway runs up through the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, where the larches turn gold in October. An hour past the summit sits Leavenworth, a town that remade itself in the 1960s as a Bavarian village and leaned into it ever since, right down to the fall Oktoberfest. Lunch at München Haus runs to bratwurst and house mustard in a beer garden off Front Street. Der Ritterhof and the Innsbrucker Inn are two of the older motor-court lodgings if you want to bed down early, though the theaters and live music can keep a night going. Rest up, because Day 2 covers ground.

Day 2: Leavenworth to Winthrop

Breakfast in Leavenworth is worth a slow start, whether that means gingerbread at The Gingerbread Factory or Belgian waffles at Leavenworth Coffee and Waffles. With time to spare, the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum holds the collection Arlene and George Wagner spent decades assembling, thousands of the things going back centuries. Half an hour east, Wenatchee marks the edge of Washington wine country, the point where the wet western slopes give way to sun and orchards. Ohme Gardens, the alpine-style terraces Herman and Ruth Ohme planted above the Columbia starting in the 1930s, sits just north of town and opens roughly mid-April through mid-October.

From Wenatchee, State Highway 97A traces the Columbia River up to Lake Chelan, a 55-mile glacial trench that ranks among the deepest lakes in the country. Chelan makes a natural lunch stop, and The Landing plates grilled fare over the water if you did not pack one. The last stretch to Winthrop runs about an hour and 20 minutes, following the Methow River past hills that flush yellow with larch in fall. Sun Mountain Lodge stands above the valley with a spa, a Finnish sauna, and the Wolf Creek Bar and Grill, where the wine list leans local and the steaks are the point. That is the halfway mark.

Day 3: Winthrop to Mukilteo

An hour west of Winthrop, the Washington Pass Overlook opens onto the Early Winters Spires and a slope of larch below. This is the high, wild heart of the North Cascades Highway, and it comes with a catch: the road over the pass closes each winter under snow and avalanche risk, usually from late November until it reopens in April or May. Clear of the pass, the descent runs about two and a half hours to Fidalgo Island. Diablo Lake glows an unreal turquoise in summer, colored by glacial silt, and the old-growth Douglas firs and western red cedars at Rockport State Park have stood for centuries. The Skagit River then leads down toward Fredonia and back into the damp, green western half of the state.

From Fidalgo Island the North Cascades Highway carries you over Deception Pass onto Whidbey Island, with the San Juan Islands scattered off to the west. The ferry from Clinton loads cars for the short hop across Possession Sound, and a lucky crossing turns up an orca or a gray whale from the window. Twenty minutes later, ferry schedule permitting, the boat lands back at Mukilteo where the loop began.

Beyond the Cascade Loop

The full circle takes in the Bavarian streets of Leavenworth, the orchards and vineyards of the Columbia country, and the whale-worked waters of Puget Sound. After 440 miles, a rest is fair.

Anyone still itching to drive has options across the Pacific Northwest. State Route 112 along the Strait of Juan de Fuca runs past Native American communities and a long stretch of Salish Sea coastline. Oregon has ten more federally recognized byways of its own, and the border is only a few hours south.