Shhhh. I have a secret.
It’s about a magical place high in the mountains – quaint cottages under heavy blankets of snow. But unlike Narnia or Hobbiton, this one is real.
We smelled the tiki torches at Scottish Lakes High Camp before we could see the enclave – little huts that appeared like a high alpine LOST encampment. It was midnight and nearly freezing in spite of the mid-April date. Our three-hour snowshoe with headlamps under a billion stars had led us up the mountain along the unmistakable tracks of snowmobiles. It was a jaunt that was supposed to take an hour and a half, but we felt lazy and the world seemed so… foreign.
Where eastern Washington trees once stood, a timber company had stripped away large swaths of forest. But given that the elevation is 5,000 feet, almost 100 inches of snow made even scarred clear-cut look like enchanted meadows.
Scottish Lake owners lease the land, taking advantage of timber cutting by turning it into a backcountry skiing paradise.
A handful of rustic A-frames are scattered around a valley loosely surrounding a communal lodge, a wood fired hot tub and sauna. From base camp, twenty-six trails have been mapped and marked using numbered blue signs.
Our first morning lit up a steep, empty slope in view of our porch. It was called Wild Bill Hill which sounded like an interesting first outing. So we tramped to the summit in our snowshoes with downhill skis and backcountry sleds in tow (the camp provides free snowshoes and sleds for guests). And while I can say the earn-your-turns run was way too short, it was most certainly virginal and very, very sweet.
Our second day proved equally warm and sunny and high meadows turned from icy crust to squishy lush. Huge annual snowfalls at Scottish Lakes means that boulders and small trees are largely covered leaving only the occasional pocket of mature trees to ski through.
Scottish Lakes High Camp is NOT an overly sanitized version of the northwest. It still feels like raw backcountry (think using a freezing outhouse in the dead of night is fun?) but yet it’s a foreign feeling place completely accessible for the average Joe.
To reach the camp, go 17 miles east of Steven’s Pass on Highway 2. Guests are transported eight miles from a parking area via 4-wheel Suburban and snowmobile.
Guests can choose to do the last four miles by foot like we did, or they can get a ride on the speedy snowmobiles. When you depart it’s fairly easy to ski or sled all the way to the bottom. It’s a little pricey at $230 per person for two nights including transportation.
