Harts Pass area is the highest elevation road in Washington state you can drive a car to at 6204'. You can continue to the end of the main road to the base of Slate Peak at about 7000' (Slate is 7440' and used to be a military radar point).
It's a true "dark sky" area and an area that had a gold rush starting back in 1870 when a lucky prospector found surface gold veins. All kinds of havoc ensued up into the 1910 time frame when going after the gold took lots of drilling and money to keep chasing.
The town of Barron was established up on the side of Slate peak and boomed to 2500 miners with the required saloons, hotels, stores and post office and whatnot.
I finally made it into the old town site, almost 3 miles of very rough rock strewn road on a bicycle and 1000' decent to where the formidable gate is the branches off and back uphill one and a half more miles on foot to the beginnings of town.
There are few remnants left other than some large and small buildings that have succumbed to the relentless winter snow loads. I stuck to the main road and passed several road/trail branches that generally went steeply up hill and out of sight behind trees and hillside- those no doubt have lots of ancient machinery that I'd like to go see some day.
I did not think I was going to get back up there this year because of wildfire and then a big debris flow that blocked the North Cascades highway for much of August. Last Tuesday the hiway was cleared and open, weather was cloudy but clearing so off I went to spend the night up at the pass and go exploring.
Got a great spot to camp for $10 fee, tent set up and then it started snowing very lightly, I thought well that's fun... flake size and intensity increased and went on for an hour. 36 degrees so it was not sticking, slight clearing and then another 30 minutes of snow in August.
It did clear and and cooled to 34 degrees until the sun popped up over the ridge and warmed up gradually to almost 60.
Good biking and hiking weather in brilliant sunshine.
Rutro, 3 season tent, should have brought a 4 season
Picnic table was all iced up in the morning
My new steed, e power Trek Allant+ 8S with better tires than stock for this use. Gotta pedal to make it go, no throttle and I was wishing for suspension... there are some better options for this kind of abuse
