Wildfire closes Washington’s North Cascades National Park highway

If you want to cross Washington state’s rugged Cascade mountains, you’ll do a lot of climbing. Fortunately, several mountain passes make taking an RV over the mountains relatively easy. But wildfire has closed Washington’s North Cascades highway.

Often described as “The American Alps,” the mountains here are arguably the most scenic in all of the Evergreen State. But the pass is “closed indefinitely” due to wildfire.

The “Easy” wildfire closes Washington’s North Cascades highway

A pass report from Washington’s Department of Transportation says that on July 21 at 4 p.m., SR 20 North Cascades Highway closed in both directions between Granite Creek (MP 148) and Easy Pass trailhead (157). This due to “wildfire activity and fire mitigation on the Easy Fire. This closure is in place until further notice.”

The Easy Fire? There’s a misnomer if there ever was one. The wildfire broke out on July 17 in dense timber, the product of dry lightning storms. Crews got there in a hurry, and reported the fire was a running crown fire, explosively blasting its way high above ground in tree tops.

“Crews stayed on the fire overnight but weeks of extreme temperatures, record dry conditions, and dangerous terrain with no road access hampered initial response efforts,” says a report from government wildfire reporter, Inciweb.

Anything but “Easy” to put out

The Easy Fire will be a tough one to get out. While crews are looking over terrain to try and plan containment lines, there are real problems. There are no existing roads or other natural features to limit fire spread. Ground crews will try and build containment lines.

Why not dump retardant from air tankers? Steep terrain makes such flying dangerous, and with the trees as thick as they are, retardant hardly reaches the ground.

If you’ve ever taken your motorhome or pulled a trailer through, you’ll remember it. Hairpin turns that make you scrunch to the middle of the cabin. Views you really want to take pictures of—but there are only so many safe places to pull over. A place so rugged that when winter comes, you know it’ll be a long wait until the spring thaw before anyone gets across that pass again. It could be the pass is unpassable until next year.

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