Sight · North Cascades National Park
A boulder monument marks the Highway 20 approach.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
North Cascades Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for North Cascades National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the North Cascades audio tourRecorded for this area
The Woodpecker’s Calling Card“A deep, rectangular hole in a dead tree can be a pileated woodpecker's feeding mark. These crow-sized birds hammer into soft wood to reach carpenter-ant tunnels, sometimes leaving excavations a foot long.”
Plays on the road 0.2 mi from North Cascades National Park Entrance Sign in the Parkwolf North Cascades Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
This stone monument stands beside State Route 20 near Marblemount, on the west approach to the North Cascades park complex. It’s a quick arrival photo, not a stop that needs much time; save your bigger break for the mountain drive ahead.
A signed pullout or safe walk-in at the monument isn’t confirmed. Stop only if you can get fully clear of traffic; otherwise keep driving. For a photo, keep the whole boulder face in frame and leave a strip of roadway at one edge so the monument still reads as a roadside marker.
State Route 20 is the scenic access road through the park complex. Allow at least an hour for the roughly 30-mile stretch across the park, then add time for stops. The highway closes seasonally farther east between Ross Dam Trailhead and Lone Fir Campground, so check conditions before planning a through-drive.
Wildlife
101 sightingsMountain GoatMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
70 sightingsBlack BearMost seen around 8 PMSighting map
20 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
77 sightingsSooty GrouseMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
23 sightingsWhite-tailed PtarmiganMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
75 sightingsWestern ToadMost seen around 8 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across North Cascades. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
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Parkwolf’s North Cascades ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
