Washington Cascades - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 319

bikers and horseback riders. Bikes can be rented at the Freestone Inn for $38 a day. Most
of the best trails start on Harts Pass Rd (USFS Rd 5400).
Harts Pass SCENIC DRIVE
If you prefer white-knuckle car rides to white-water rafting trips, consider taking the
single-lane gravel track up to Hart's Pass (6197ft), Washington's highest drivable road,
and also its most vertigo-inducing. If the narrow, winding route and scary unguarded
drop-offs don't knock the wind out of you, the panoramic views certainly will. To get to
Harts Pass head northwest on Lost River Rd (also known as Mazama Rd) past Mazama
Country Inn to USFS Rd 5400. The road is paved for the first 12 miles; the last dozen are
gravel. At Harts Pass there's still more of a climb for the intrepid driver; head another 3
miles up to Slate Peak (7450ft), where - after a short hike from the road's end - the
view from an abandoned fire lookout is…well, go and see. Slate Peak is also the site of
the northernmost road access to the Pacific Crest Trail in the USA.
Early Winters Outfitting OUTDOORS
( www.earlywintersoutfitting.com ; HCR 74 Box B6, Mazama; hiking trips per day from $220) Offers
horseback riding, cattle drives, and fishing and hunting trips.
DON'T MISS
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING IN THE METHOW
Broad, beautiful and littered with trails, the Methow is to cross-country skiing what
Aspen is to downhill, but with only a fraction of the fame. To devotees of the more
environmentally congruous free-heel method, this is the primary draw: no crowds,
no Gore-Tex fashion parade, and no beer-fueled après-ski - just you, miles of sug-
ary powder and the Cascades.
With 200km of groomed trails, the valley comprises the second-largest cross-
country skiing area in the US (after California's Royal Gorge). But, unlike other ski
areas, there's no resort pampering here. A bucolic mix of farmland, aspen groves,
rivers and old barns, the Methow is a real-life rural community whose far-sighted
residents have created a nonprofit organization, the Methow Valley Sport Trails As-
sociation (MVSTA; www.mvsta.com ; 209 Castle Ave, Winthrop) . When it's not fighting off
profit-hungry ski-resort developers, the MVSTA promotes and protects a well-
maintained trail system that enables skiers to meander at will between a handful of
huts, cabins, lodges and small settlements.
The network's 'aorta' is the 20-mile Methow Community Trail (MCT), a flat, central
valley route groomed for classic and skate skiing that plies its way between stra-