Best Hiking Trails in the Pacific Northwest by Gwyneth Manser

Gwyneth (00:00)
my uncle called me up and said,

Hey, like I know you haven’t started grad school yet and ⁓ I have backpacking permits for this really cool backpacking trip and I know you’ve never gone backpacking. Your cousin was supposed to go but he doesn’t want to anymore. So do you want to come?

And I was just like, sure, yeah. And so I went to REI, got my like first pair of hiking boots as an adult and like a couple of supplies. And I brought all my cousin’s old gear and went on this backpacking trip, not really knowing how it would go.

was totally hooked

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (00:37)
On this episode, I’m speaking with Gwyn Manzer.

Gwyneth and her wife, Ami, live in the Pacific Northwest and they have hiked all over Washington, Oregon, and even Western US.

Gwen shares some of her favorite trails in the Pacific Northwest

So if you have any plans to hike out there, you’ll definitely want to listen to this episode. Let’s get into it.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (00:55)
Hi, Gwyn, thank you for joining me today. I’m so glad to have you here to talk about hiking, especially in the Pacific Northwest. How’s everything going?

Gwyneth (01:05)
It’s good. It’s a beautiful fall day here. It’s starting to cool off in the PNW or at least in Spokane it is. And yeah, sunny, the leaves are all starting to change. I’m looking at like bright gold colors. So yeah, it’s a great day. When the sun is out out here, it’s a good day.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:21)
So where exactly are you located?

Gwyneth (01:23)
So my wife and I travel a lot in our truck camper kind of all over the region and the West, but our home base is in Spokane, Washington. So that’s where I am today. And it’s the eastern side of the state. So everyone thinks of like Seattle metro area. But we’re practically in Idaho, totally different ecosystem, very different vibe. And yeah, we’re really lucky out here.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:31)
Okay.

Is it still very mountainous out on the eastern side of the state?

Gwyneth (01:49)
actually right between, kind of uniquely, we’re right between the Cascade Mountain Range and the Rocky Mountain Range. So we can go one direction or the other and be in a totally different ecosystem. But yeah, it is still pretty mountainous. I would say Spokane itself is, I think we’re about 2000 feet of elevation. So we’re not super high and you have to go maybe an hour plus to get to like really cool mountains. But we are like

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:55)
Okay.

Okay.

Gwyneth (02:15)
pretty close. I like to joke if you’ve ever been to Bend, Oregon or heard of Bend, Spokane’s like the less cool and cheaper version of Bend. It’s kind of how I like to think about it or talk about it to people who aren’t familiar with the area.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:29)
You’re really selling it. ⁓

Gwyneth (02:33)
We really like Spokane let me be clear there. But yeah, I do wish we had some bigger mountains like Bend has

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:38)
Well, from someone who’s in Pennsylvania where my mountain that’s close to me is like 2,000 feet.

Gwyneth (02:46)
You’re in ⁓ the Philly metro area, right?

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:48)
You sound like you live in a great place.

yeah, the Appalachian Trail very close by, but still like, you know, it’s like 2,900 feet is like, woohoo, there you go, we made it to the summit.

Gwyneth (03:02)
Yeah, but the difference is on the west coast we believe in switchbacks and on the east coast you’re like go straight up the mountain it’s fine and you’re like wait this is like harder than I expected. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (03:06)
Yeah.

Yeah. What’s a 30 % grade? Who cares? Just go.

All right. So we were talking, obviously you’re here. You love hiking. Now, did you grow up hiking? Was that something that you did with your family when you were younger?

Gwyneth (03:26)
I didn’t grow up doing a whole lot of hiking. I grew up in a very outdoorsy family, but more in the organized sports, like go run track and field and cross country, play field hockey, go swimming, that kind of stuff. ⁓ And I have an older sister, she’s five years older than me, and she is not a big fan of hiking and the outdoors and national parks. So growing up, we just didn’t do that stuff. And ⁓ it wasn’t until I got into college that

I started to visit some national parks, do a lot more hiking, and then after that was really where my, I guess, journey to being more outdoorsy really started. yeah, wasn’t, like, backpacking was a totally foreign concept to me growing up. I didn’t even know what that was.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (04:07)
It seems like a lot of the women that I interview that does happen, know, like maybe they’ve done like a few outdoorsy experiences as a child, but not until usually it’s like COVID or college. Those are the two things I feel like that influence people to get outside.

Gwyneth (04:21)
Yeah, I could see that. feel like COVID really changed a lot of people. I think for me, my big introduction was, so I grew up on the East Coast and went to college in Atlanta and then moved out to Portland, Oregon for my master’s. And I had a couple months before my master’s program was going to start, I was looking for any job I could find and wasn’t finding anything.

And I have relatives who live up in Washington and my uncle called me up and said,

Hey, like I know you haven’t started grad school yet and ⁓ I have backpacking permits for this really cool backpacking trip and I know you’ve never gone backpacking. Your cousin was supposed to go but he doesn’t want to anymore. So do you want to come? And I literally didn’t own a pair of hiking boots and I was like, sure, I’ll go. I don’t know what this is. it’s the route is called the Enchantment Traverse and it is one of the most

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (05:10)
Okay.

Gwyneth (05:11)
famous backpacking routes in Washington. It is very hard to get permits. It’s like a very competitive lottery process. So I had no idea what I was in for, but it’s like 5,000 plus feet of elevation gain, 20 plus miles. And I was just like, sure, yeah. And so I went to REI, got my like first pair of hiking boots as an adult and like a couple of supplies. And I brought all my cousin’s old gear and went on this backpacking trip, not really knowing how it would go.

was totally hooked and so that was my introduction to hiking and backpacking and the West because I had just moved out here.

And it was really thrown into the defend but I was with a bunch of super experienced people so I wasn’t worried or anything like that.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (05:49)
That’s a…

Yeah, was gonna say, like, that’s definitely being thrown into the deep end, like here, like 20 miles, sure. But I guess when you’re like in your young 20s, you know, you can do anything.

Gwyneth (06:00)
Let’s go!

You know, now that I’m in my mid-30s, I’m like, gosh, I could not give out on a whim. I would probably die. it was pretty great and definitely got me hooked on more epic adventures, I would say.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (06:20)
Now that’s awesome. So your wife, she’s also a big hiker, backpacker. Is that what connected you two or did you get her into it?

Gwyneth (06:29)
she did a lot more backpacking and hiking as a kid. She grew up in the Sacramento area in California and so like grew up kind of going to the Tahoe area with her dad to go backpacking and have adventures. So she was, I think, a little bit more seasoned than I, but we met when I was living in Portland. We met online and started dating and then I followed her across the country to Virginia when she was doing grad school.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (06:45)
Okay.

Gwyneth (06:55)
⁓ But yeah, we do most of our adventures together. So not so many solo adventures. I do them, do do them occasionally. ⁓ But yeah, we’re mostly like an adventure duo, I guess you could say.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:08)
It’s nice to have a willing partner.

Gwyneth (07:10)
Yes, yes,

I think ⁓ she probably wouldn’t see me too much if she weren’t willing to go backpacking and hiking, so I guess she’s just kind of along for the ride by default, because we do enjoy each other’s company, but yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:22)
It’s kind of

the same with my husband and the kids. I’m like, all right, guys, like this is how we’re spending family time together. We’re out on the trail. My son actually enjoys it. He actually just did a backpacking trip with his scout trip this weekend, so he loves backpacking, but he doesn’t like hiking with us because we hike too slowly for him.

Gwyneth (07:40)
That’s hilarious. my goodness, I love that.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:42)
I know, I know. He’s like, if you could just

move a little faster, it’d be more enjoyable. I’m like, thank you. Love you too.

Gwyneth (07:47)
You’ve got to get them into

something like photography. It’ll slow them way down and then you’ll be telling them, you got to speed up. Come on, stop taking pictures.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:56)
It

was nice for a little bit because he was using the Seek app, you know, to like identify trees and stuff. But then he got over that because now he can identify everything. He doesn’t need the app anymore. So then I’m like, don’t you want to say he’s like, I know what that is. You know, that’s the chicken of the forest mushroom or whatever that is. I’m like, OK. Wait, so we touched. Yes. Yes.

Gwyneth (08:12)
Oh yeah, I know what you’re talking about. So it sounds like now you need to come out west because then you won’t know what everything is.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (08:22)
Yes, yes, we have goals. have goals. So and then he won’t be hiking as fast, hopefully. We did touch on the fact that you that you’ve traveled across the country and then you’re back again. So what about Washington itself made you want to settle there? Was it like job opportunity? Was it the location that you’re at? with all the mountains?

Gwyneth (08:25)
you

you

I used to live in Oregon, which I absolutely love as well, kind of Portland metro area. And then after my wife finished her master’s in Virginia, in Blacksburg, we moved to California so I could do my PhD at UC Davis. And so we were in the Central Valley. And I love California. It’s a beautiful state. There’s so much to explore. But I would say, you we really miss the culture kind of vibe of the Pacific Northwest. I think we’re a little more.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (09:07)
Okay.

Gwyneth (09:07)
I don’t know, there’s more of a down to earth kind of sense to the folks that live up north of California. And so we were kind of always wanting to go back. when I finished my PhD, I applied for something called a postdoc, which is basically, you have a PhD, so you have your doctorate, but you’re looking to do research work with a professor. And so the postdoc that I got was at Washington State University, which is in Pullman, about an hour and a half south of Spokane.

And we had just finished up two rounds of small college towns, so we didn’t really want to move to Pullman. So we ended up moving to Spokane and settled here and I’ve really liked it. And I’m not working my academic job anymore and not in academia any longer, but that was kind of what brought us to Washington. And we weren’t sure how we would like it. We know we love the Pacific Northwest, but Oregon and Washington are very different, but we’ve really enjoyed being here.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:05)
Well that’s good. And your PhD is in Geology? Is that correct? Well, Geography! Sorry!

Gwyneth (10:09)
in geography, which is close to geography.

Geography and then my focus was on local and sustainable food systems. So that was kind of what I specialized in and what I did teaching and research in. Yeah, it’s definitely a cool journey and glad I was able to finish my degree. yeah, getting a PhD, I always joke, is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It definitely requires a lot of work. And so

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:17)
Very interesting.

I’m sure.

Gwyneth (10:34)
always think that when I’m on a hard hike or something like, I got a PhD. It’s fine. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:38)
You’re like, I can do anything after my, how, what is it?

My one friend has her PhD. was like six, almost seven years of school for her. Was that about the same for you? Yeah. Okay.

Gwyneth (10:48)
Well for me it was five, the fastest you

can finish is four, and then the longest you can be I think it’s like nine. So ⁓ yeah, I feel like five is a good amount. Yeah, don’t go by that too often, but it is my official title I guess.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:54)
Yeah, yeah. That’s still a long time. You did good. Good, good. Dr. Manser

you definitely earned it.

All right, so let’s switch over to hiking topics about, especially this Pacific Northwest, because that’s why I have you on here. I wanna pick your brain, your expertise of the region. ⁓ I would love to get out there, I have not. So for a first timer, are there any specific trails in Washington, Oregon, in that area that you would be like, you must do this? These are the best trails for a first timer out there.

Gwyneth (11:16)
Hmm.

Hmm.

I love everything, like all the hikes in the Pacific Northwest, so it’s always hard for me to break it down. But I would say when you’re coming out here, I’ll share some of my favorite trails and some of my kind of favorite regions to explore, but I will kind of caveat that with you should think about what season you’re coming out. So I know when I moved out here, I had no idea like mountains are not a thing in southern New Jersey. It’s a very flat, so I didn’t really…

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (11:41)
You

That’s true, yes.

Very flat.

Gwyneth (12:04)
have a sense of what the seasons here look like. And at least in Washington, if you’re trying to do higher alpine hikes or higher elevation hikes, they’re often covered in snow through mid to late July. So if you go to Mount Rainier National Park in June thinking, wow, it’s summer, this is going to be great, it’s a snow field.

So I think I was really surprised by that moving out here. So you want to keep the seasons kind of in mind. And obviously rain is a factor, particularly on what we call the west side, aka over the Cascade Range, kind of towards Seattle and Portland. And then the other thing I would say is to think about the caliber of hikes you want to do. So are you up for a lot of elevation gain? Are you up for a lot of mileage? Are you looking to do stuff that’s a little easier or more low key? And I think that’s another important factor because

in Washington you can do like 6,000 plus feet of elevation gain in a hike or you can do like 200 feet and there’s everything in between. ⁓ And so that’s something to keep in mind. But I would say if you’re coming out here, two of my favorite trails for kind of first time visitors to the Northwest and in particular to Washington. ⁓ One is the Skyline Loop Trail and it’s on, it’s in Mount Rainier National Park and it’s

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (13:03)
Ooh.

Mm-hmm.

Gwyneth (13:25)
one of the most popular trails in the park. So it is very busy and it’s the first time I’ve done a hike and thought, wow, this feels a little like Disneyland. But if you go earlier late in the day, you’ll get a lot fewer people and also if you go kind of in the off season. But it’s five and a half miles, nothing too wild and it’s about 2000 feet of gain. And you feel like you’re right on top of the mountain the whole time. You’re not, you’re overlooking the mountain if it’s a sunny day.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (13:44)
Yeah, that’s good.

Gwyneth (13:54)
But it kind of takes you on this traverse up around part of the mountain and you kind of change, I wouldn’t say you change ecosystems, but the landscape changes pretty dramatically in this five and a half mile hike. And in summer,

part of it’s like really rocky and kind of barren and parts are really forested or not really forested, but a bit forested.

⁓ And in summer you get tons of wildflowers and it’s really, really beautiful. And then in fall you have lots of really pretty colors from the shrubs. So that’s a hype that I would highly recommend. It’s totally worth it. It can be a little hard to nail a good weather window because Mount Rainier likes to hide behind ⁓ a layer of fog a lot of the year. And so you might show up and not see the mountain at all, which has happened to us on that trail before.

⁓ but it’s still really beautiful and worthwhile. And then the other one that’s probably equally famous in a lot of ways is in North Cascades National Park. So it’s in Northern Washington and it’s called Maple Pass. And I think it’s probably the most popular fall hike in maybe the entire Pacific Northwest. And I think for sure in Washington. And when I say it’s the most popular fall hike,

In fall, you might get two miles of cars parked down the road that you have to walk an extra two miles so that you can get to the trailhead because it is that popular. But it is, I think, a six and a half mile trail, a little over 2,000 feet of elevation. I want to say 2,500. So it’s not an easy hike, but it’s also not wildly challenging. And you’re basically going around this sort

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (15:11)
my goodness.

Wow.

Gwyneth (15:33)
You go up onto a pass and the whole time you’re overlooking this really beautiful lake, mountain lake called Lake Anne. It’s got kind of little iconic island on it that you may have seen pictures of before. But it’s the area is super famous for fall because it has these beautiful kind of fall colors, lots of orange and red on the mountainside. It almost looks like a tapestry. And then you also have these trees called birches and larches. Have you heard of them before?

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:01)
Yeah, they’re like that

yellow, that fantastic yellow in the fall, right?

Gwyneth (16:05)
Yeah, I thinking about

it. So they’re called deciduous conifers and they basically just look like regular kind pine tree type plants, evergreens, in summer. But in fall, they turn like highlighter green and then highlighter yellow in fall and then lose all their needles and they grow them back the next year. And so there’s about a one to two week window usually in fall where you have these just like brilliant yellow trees in the mountains. They look totally unreal.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:27)
Mm-hmm.

Gwyneth (16:34)
And that is why the hike is so famous because there’s a bunch of larches along that trail and it is just so beautiful. So would say if you can only do two trails and one of them is in fall, would say Mabel Pass would be my recommendation. Just have the crowds in mind. And then a couple other regions that might be worth exploring, ⁓ particularly if you’re maybe not looking for as intense of a hike. ⁓ One would be Oregon’s Highway of Waterfalls.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:59)
Mm-hmm.

Gwyneth (17:02)
So it’s highway 138 and it’s in southern Oregon, pretty close to Crater Lake. And ⁓ that area has literally dozens of beautiful waterfalls right off of this road. And you can do kind of longer hikes, so 10 plus miles to see waterfalls, or you can do like half mile jaunts to see the waterfalls. So it depends which ones you want to go see.

but they’re really beautiful and there’s a natural hot spring out there and a super cute place called the Steamboat Inn that you can stay along the route and it’s just like kind of magical fairy tale waterfall organ experience and it’s pretty good to visit

it’s so nice and I like that it’s accessible for a broader range of people

⁓ and near there is Crater Lake National Park, which is actually one of the lesser visited national parks in the U.S. And I, I think Crater Lake is like the bee’s knees. We’ve been a million times, often in winter, which is actually my favorite season. But the cool thing about Crater Lake is you can do hikes there, or you can just kind of drive around the rim of the lake in summer and stop at overlooks and like enjoy the view and you don’t have to do anything too wild. So it kind of depends what season you go.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (17:50)
Mm-hmm.

Gwyneth (18:13)
The majority of the road around the lake closes down in winter, so your activities are a little more limited, but it’s just such a pretty area and really worth exploring ⁓ and kind of, again, meets a wider range of abilities and interests. And then my last place that I would recommend to people that I don’t hear folks talk about a lot in terms of hiking is Whigby Island, which is right outside of Seattle. It’s about two hours if you drive. ⁓

And you can also take a ferry over from Seattle, and that’s a lot faster. But it is a beautiful island off the coast of Washington state. And there are a ton of just really flat, beautiful hikes through the forest and the woods. It really gives you those classic Pacific Northwest vibes with lichen and moss everywhere and beautiful mushrooms and just really chill and incredibly beautiful.

Those would be kind of my recommendations for regions to consider and a couple hikes to on your radar.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (19:15)
love that. Thank you. was very nice of you making me want to come out there like right away. Now, do you have any favorite like backpacking trails out there that you’ve that you’ve done that you and Ami have done together?

Gwyneth (19:19)
You’re welcome.

I think one of my favorite trails, which we’ve done both as a day hike and a backpacking hike is Hidden Lake Lookout. That’s in North Cascades National Park and it’s the road to get to it is really gnarly. It’s forest surface road that is not well maintained and we last drove it.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (19:48)
You think your car’s gonna fall apart as you’re driving along it?

Gwyneth (19:51)
Like the road itself is

rough and then there’s a ton of brush on either side of the road and we have our very wide truck with a truck camper on it. And so we got, I think someone joked that it’s called like the Cascades Car Wash. And then we just had like ear driving, you’re just hearing this like, the branches are dragging on the truck. I’m like, oh no, like our pain. But yeah, would recommend that.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (19:56)
no.

⁓

I can picture it, yes. So bring a car that you don’t care about on this road, if you can.

Gwyneth (20:21)
Yeah, the less you care about your car the better. yeah,

it’s ⁓ this like tiny trailhead, but it’s, I forget what the mileage is, I want to say it’s like nine miles or seven miles, but basically you go through this like beautiful meadow and kind of take these switchbacks up a mountain and then you end up in the alpine and like the second half of the hike it’s all in the alpine with these just beautiful views of Mount Baker and

some of the other iconic mountain ranges in the Pacific Northwest, and you end up overlooking ⁓ this thing called Hidden Lake, it’s literally a lake, and above that is a fire lookout. And you can actually stay there for free. So you have to kind of climb, I want to say like 500 or so feet up on this kind of like rocky trail, but you end up on the fire lookout where they actually used to like send someone up there to observe the landscape for wildfires.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (21:04)
Well that’s cool.

Gwyneth (21:19)
And so you can spend the night in the lookout. It’s pretty competitive to get a night in there. So we’ve never actually spent the night in the lookout. It depends on the season, but yeah, a lot of people will try for the lookout and realize it’s old or like a little too crowded for their comfort. So you can also ⁓ camp down below and there’s a ton of campsites and that’s what we’ve done in the past. And ⁓ it’s just a beautiful area, really nice mountain views and ⁓ yeah, a cool and unique trail.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (21:23)
I was gonna say, how hard is it to, yeah.

Gwyneth (21:46)
So I would say that that would probably be one of my top ones. And then this summer we did a big backpacking trip. I think it was we ended up doing 35 miles ⁓ for Eagle Cap Wilderness, which is in Joseph, Oregon area. So it’s in a part of the state or part of Oregon called the Wallowa Mountains. And it’s just a really pretty, very remote part of eastern Oregon. So it’s got a little bit of kind of a cowboy culture feel. They have a really famous rodeo in that town.

And then right outside of the town is this area called Eagle Cap Wilderness, which is just this beautiful area in the mountains full of lakes and trees, and it’s just super pretty. And so we finally got to go experience that for a backpacking trip, and it was really lovely, and I would recommend.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (22:36)
Do you have any kind of hidden gem, lesser known trails that maybe aren’t as popular as the other ones that you had mentioned, like the skyline trail and everything?

Gwyneth (22:45)
Yeah, if you’re looking to escape crowds, a couple of things come to mind for me. One, which we did this summer is called Trapper’s Peak and it is, it’s a tough hike. It’s 10 miles and 3,500 feet of elevation gain and the trail itself is not that exciting until like the last mile or two. So I will like preface this with that. it’s in North Cascades National So you’re in North Cascades National Park and

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (22:59)
Whoa.

But the payoff is worth it, right? ⁓

Gwyneth (23:14)
You have to do some scrambling, so it’s only good for hikers that are comfortable with that. basically you end the hike on Trappers Peak and you are just absolutely surrounded by the Cascade Mountains. Like you feel like you’re at eye level with all these iconic peaks. can see, if it’s called the Pickett’s Range or the Prickett’s Range or something, but there’s this like really remote mountain range in the North Cascades that you can be looking right at it. I have a picture of Ami.

standing on the peak with all these mountains in the background, It looks like it was photoshopped. Like it just looks unreal. It looks like you’re in the Alps or I don’t even know. It just looks absolutely fake. And I never hear people talk about that trail. We barely saw anyone on it when we did it. And Ami’s afraid of heights, so I wasn’t sure if was going to make it up the scramble portion.

but she did great and like she she was cursing me a little bit as she was going up but she survived and ⁓ she had a great time when she got to the top and so yeah Yeah, my role is to like push her limits and have her yell at me and then afterwards she’s like, okay, that was cool I guess but I’m not at you So, ⁓ yeah, I would say that is like one of my top heights if you’re up for a challenge ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:15)
Really testing the relationship there.

That sounds incredible.

I love rock scamp scrambles. Like so does my family too. Like we’re like if we’re not four points of contact on the trail, was it even worth it?

Gwyneth (24:42)
I

I feel like it’s like a fun, I don’t know, it’s a fun way to break up just like hiking all the time, like to challenge yourself in new ways and have a little bit of that like very low stakes technical piece where you’re like, yeah, I need to like focus. There’s a little bit of danger and thrill, but also like I need to kind of problem solve where am going to put my hands or am I going to do it? I think it’s a lot of fun.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:47)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, like where does my hand go? Where does my foot go? Yeah, I like that. I don’t know. Like you

said, yeah, it breaks it up a little bit. It’s fun.

Gwyneth (25:08)
Yeah, and then two other hiking areas or one other hiking area that comes to mind for me is so we live in Eastern Washington and we’re practically in Idaho and we spent a lot of time hiking in northern Idaho in an area called the Panhandle and I think it is just like such a stunning region depending who you ask it is part of the inland northwest or the Pacific Northwest or not depending who you’re talking to.

But there’s a Forest Service Road out there called, I think it’s 231, and there are a bunch of like stunning Alpine Lake, mountain lake hikes off of that. There’s a hike called Bee Hive Lakes, Fault Lake, Harrison Lake, can go backpacking or you can do them as day hikes. And every time we go out there, and we’ve been out there many times,

We barely see anybody. Like there is nobody out there almost to the point where you’re like, this is weird. Like I just did a 10 mile hike to a beautiful lake and I saw one person the whole time and that’s kind of creepy. ⁓ but it is just like such a pretty region. And so if you’re looking to like truly escape the crowds, you don’t want to deal with, ⁓ you know, kind of West side hikes or North Cascades It’s like come to Eastern Washington and come to Northern Idaho. Like there’s barely anyone on the trails out here and it is, is really beautiful and just a totally different landscape.

So I would say that would be another region recommendation. And then my one other thing would be Mount St. Helens. It’s not ⁓ like a hidden gem by any

don’t have specific trails to recommend, but I feel like that’s an area of Washington in particular. It’s pretty close to Portland. It’s pretty close to Seattle. And people just seem to forget about it. And you can do some really cool hikes there. And there’s a trail that actually kind of traverses the rim.

area that we were hoping to do this summer as a backpacking trip and we just couldn’t make it happen but I’m hoping to do that in the future because it seems like a really unique way to experience the mountain but there’s also tons of day hikes and it’s a really pretty area. We went there and did some hiking on our honeymoon many years ago and it just like really blew me away because I went in not knowing what to expect didn’t really see people talking about this area and was like wow it’s like

really cool and also I hope the mountain doesn’t erupt again while I’m here.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (27:23)
maybe that’s why it’s not as, you know, popular for hiking. Who knows?

Gwyneth (27:27)
They

have so many like probes and you know lots of pieces of equipment checking on all of our mountains for the North Cascades. I always feel pretty confident you know that we know something’s coming well beforehand and would obviously avoid the area if that happened.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (27:35)
Yeah.

Those are good tips though, especially the Northern Idaho because you don’t really hear about that area that much and you kind of forget like, yeah, no, have mountains up there. now ⁓ I kind of want to go to Idaho.

Gwyneth (27:58)
Yeah, it’s really beautiful.

We spend a lot of time in Idaho and I think it’s, being a queer couple, think sometimes we feel a little bit of reservation because it is a lot more conservative and the policies are a little different than in Washington. I just, maybe we’ve just been lucky, but everyone we’ve ever interacted with there is so nice and welcoming and it’s just like very, the folks you do meet on the trail are like true outdoors people.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (28:12)
Yes.

Gwyneth (28:28)
⁓ And so it’s nice to see that just like embrace of outdoor recreation culture. ⁓ I think one thing that always stands out to me is like when you’re hiking in Washington, you get a lot of people that are super prepared, but you also get folks hiking like 2000 feet up a mountain in like Keds. And I’m like, that is great for you if that works. But I don’t know that that’s like the safest going down a steep slope. But in Idaho, I feel like everyone is like.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (28:50)
Yeah.

Gwyneth (28:54)
Uber prepared to like, well, you could get stranded in the woods for a week and you’d probably be fine. That’s true. Yeah, yeah, that is definitely a place if you go hiking in fall be ready. It’s hunting season out there. So like, you know, wear high visibility clothes for sure.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (28:59)
Maybe that’s their goal. ⁓

Well, I really appreciate all of this

wealth of information that you’re sharing. I’m sure anyone who’s planning a trip out to the Pacific Northwest would, you know, is very appreciative of this. know, or if they haven’t started planning it, they will now because all of these trails sound incredible. ⁓ So thank you so much for all of that.

Gwyneth (29:26)
you.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:31)
Before I let you go, I like to ask everyone this one question. if you had to choose one kind of hike for the rest of your life, like if you could only hike to a scenic overlook, a view, or you could only do waterfall hikes for the rest of your life.

What would you choose?

Gwyneth (29:47)
gosh, can I deviate from those two things or do I have to pick between waterfall and scenic views? Probably, that’s tough. Maybe scenic views. A big reason I love hiking is the photography aspect. So if you go on our social media, you’ll see that’s about half of our content. And I just, love taking photos of nature and people in nature.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:51)
You had to pick from those and then you can tell me your other option.

Gwyneth (30:16)
I the scenic views might win out for me. I love waterfall hikes, but I feel like with a scenic view, you might get a little more diversity of landscape overall.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (30:26)
I understand,

Gwyneth (30:27)
I think, and you probably would notice this in the trails that I have listed, my favorites are things to see, but I think Alpine Lake hikes are like my, Beesies, I love them so much. That’s a lot of what we do in summer. you know, obviously we have to wait a while to like, to lie for things to kind of thaw out in the mountains. But I just think those hikes are so, so.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (30:37)
There you go.

Gwyneth (30:53)
beautiful and there’s like you get the mountains, you have the lake and there’s something kind of special about those and you also have to work for it generally speaking. They’re not usually the easiest trails that you can find so there’s usually less people and yeah that is like my happy place. I could hike to an alpine lake every day for the rest of my life and I’d be happy.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (31:16)
I’ll accept that as an answer. like it, I like it.

All right, Gwyn, before I let you go, tell everyone where they can find you because yes, your photography is gorgeous. I want them to see it. And I know you have great trail information on your website. So if you could just share where everyone can follow along with you.

Gwyneth (31:33)
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook, our handles at Gwynandami and it’s my wife and I’s ⁓ account where we share kind of travels and adventure in mostly the Pacific Northwest and the kind of Western region. And then we also have a blog which is at www.gwynandami.com. And that’s where we share like more. ⁓

gear, deep dives, in-depth travel itineraries, all the national park guides you could ever want. So a nice ⁓ mix of different things as well as backpacking inspiration and tips.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (32:10)
And I’ll make sure to link all of that in the show notes so everyone can find you easily.

Gwyn, thanks again for all the information for spending your time here with me. I really appreciate it. And I can’t wait to continue to follow along on on your adventures.

Gwyneth (32:24)
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Lauren. I really appreciate it. It was lovely chatting with you.