| |
Junior Point /
Shady Pass
This road crosses the high,
pretty much unbroken ridge line of the Chelan
Mountains. This range looks almost like a big
plateau. But there are distinct summits here.
The east side is drier and also more fire
ravaged, giving the area an open feeling with
great views. The west side is deep Cascade
forest. Here orientation and views resemble
the situation of a bug crawling around in a
thick shag carpet.
From East. FR59 puts and
end to the vacation meanders of South Lakeshore
Road, on Lake Chelan. It climbs steeply above
the lake, twisting and turning like a real
mountain pass road. The pavement ends at the
juntion with Slide
Ridge Road. Shady Pass Road steeply ramps
itself up the south facing slope. The views of
Lake Chelan keep getting better. In the morning
they are flatly lit from the front, and there is
not much shade. But it did make me look forward
to some possible shade on the pass. But the
pass, at this point, is still very far away. After a last great view of the
lake, the road traverses and meanders towards
the ridge on its north side. Meanwhile an
apocalyptic looking match stick forest has taken
over every slope, mountain and ridge line in
sight. But in my opinion it still looks more
appealing than a clear cut pattern, which you
see so often in northwestern forests. After
reaching an intermediate high point the road
ahead can be seen stringing along, hopping over
to the next peak, i regluar arcs like a
telephone line. To the north a high ridgeline in
the North Cascades becomes visible for the first
time. Lake Chelan makes another appearance, deep
below, behind a curtain of matchstick forest. It's reasonable to expect the next
traverse to be the top. After all no higher
points are visible along the ridge, at least not
until you get to it. But it's getting closer.
And the best views are from shortly before the
top. The highest point along the road is signed
as Junior Point. There is a campground here and
a rest room inside a yurt.  From West. (described downwards) Progress from here on becomes dramatically faster, even if Shady Pass is not reached yet. A long traverse, with just enough drop to make Shady Pass a separate summit connects Junior Point to the pass. Right about here the matchstick forest ends and a deep, endlessly green tree groundcover takes over. There is no view from Shady Pass, but there is a sign, and the road goes over slightly higher points before and after the pass. A spur road from here goes to the north, and I imagine it has still better views of the North Cascades, than I had from the traverse between Junior Point and Shady Pass. The descent on this side is deeply graveled and it was steep enough to wear out my disc brake pads, and overheat the brake fluid. Wish I had regular brake pads. Shady Pass road merges onto paved Entlat River Road. From here great time can be made, without worrying about the destroyed brake pads. Dayride PARTIALLY PAVED / UNPAVED ( < FR8410
Slide Ridge s(u) | Salt Creek
Summit > )
|
Approaches|
|
advertisement |
|
|
advertisement |