Clear Lake Hill

Summit #59 of 70--December 31, 2023

I’m just about out of ideas for local hills to climb, since my 70 Summits thing requires that they all be places that are new to me. I’ve been up nearly all the easier high points within an hour’s drive of home, which partly explains my forays to the Issaquah Alps and elsewhere.

However, I did stumble on a report from someone who walked up Clear Lake Hill near Sedro Woolley, well under an hour from home. It was new to Keith as well, and he agreed we could give it a go. It’s really just a hike up a logging road, four miles round trip with an 800-foot elevation gain. Perfect. Recent logging promised big views.

We parked at the gate off Morford Road just east of Clear Lake. So nice to see a sign on private timberland reading “Walkers Welcome.” We presumed that included hikers, so off we went.

The best views are from spur roads on the left leading into the cutover areas, although we kept to the main road to the top to make it official. A partial view there is rapidly disappearing behind a new batch of trees.

Back down the road, we wandered out a couple of those spurs to check the views. It seemed we could almost toss a stick into Clear Lake. Low clouds obscured more distant features, and I was oddly stumped for a moment trying to identify some of the nearby hills and communities. For a minute, I had the Skagit River below flowing backwards, before I finally figured out what direction I was looking.

Clearcuts are not normally my most coveted hiking destinations, but the novel perspective and a chance to close out 2023 with my 59th summit, was reward enough for the effort. I’ll take it.