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North America : United States of America : Pacific Northwest : Washington : North Cascades : Northwest Cascades

Northwest Cascades

Northwest Cascades is in the North Cascades region of Washington.

Regions

Cities

Other destinations

  • Birch Bay State Park[1], on the coast 20 miles north of Bellingham and 10 miles south of Blaine
  • Bay View State Park[2], on Padilla Bay, 7 miles west of Burlington and 14 miles east of Anacortes
  • Larrabee State Park[3], six miles south of Bellingham on SR 11/Chuckanut Drive
  • Mount Baker ski resort, on a mountain of the same name
Artist Point[4] on Mount Baker, a stiff hike to 5140', with a grand view at the top.
Mt Baker Vista at the end of Glacier Creek Road (Forest Road 39)
  • North Cascades National Park - Jagged peaks, deep valleys, cascading waterfalls and over 300 glaciers adorn the North Cascades National Park
  • Peace Arch State Park[5]
  • Rasar State Park[6], on the Skagit River, 14 miles east of Burlington
  • Rockport State Park[7], in an old-growth forest 8 miles east of eight miles east of Concrete

Commercial Establishments

Understand

This subregion consists of Whatcom County and Skagit County

Talk

Get in

By plane

Bellingham International Airport (BLI) is the primary airport serving the region. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), while located a way to the south of Seattle, is the closest national-grade airport in the USA. Vancouver International Airport (YVR), while across the border in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada, is sometimes convenient.

By car

There are five land border crossing points, between the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada and the Northwest Cascades region of Washington state, USA. They are referred to by different terms in Canada and the US.

Visitors travelling to Vancouver by car across the U.S. border should be aware that there are often lengthy lineups at the border, in either direction. During summer, waits at the border can exceed three hours during peak times.

Inform yourself about the waits, and you can either delay your crossing until the lines subside, or choose the quickest crossing, or at least set your expectations. You can see official wait time forecasts for both directions on the Canada Border Services Agency website[13], and for US-bound traffic on the US Customs and Border Protection website[14]. It can be helpful to view webcams of the border lineups; Canada-bound on I-5 [15] and US-bound at most crossings[16][17]. Two AM stations give regular updates on border lineups in both directions: News 1130 (1130 on the AM dial) every 10 minutes beginning at one minute past the hour, and AM 730 every 10-15 minutes.

The Nexus Land program[18] lets travellers who fill out an application and pass a security check use express lanes through US-Canada land borders by presenting a Nexus card. However, you may only use the express lanes if everyone in your car has a Nexus card. There are also Nexus programs for air and marine travel.

By boat

Ferries from Alaska and Victoria, Canada dock at the Bellingham Ferry Terminal. Several towns in the region, including Bellingham and Anacortes, have marinas for private boats.

Get around

See

Itineraries

Do

Eat

Drink

Stay safe

Get out

This page was last edited at 21:18, on 23 December 2008 by Wikitravel user Shaund. Based on work by Jim DeLaHunt and M. Hogue.