Slide Ridge

Ever since moving to Manson, I have wanted to get out onto Slide Ridge - I stare at it every day from our house. A while back I had noticed on satellite images there appeared to be a swath cut through the forest from the road to one of the more striking parts of Slide Ridge, a secondary ridge coming off the main part of Slide Ridge which contains the avalanche path coming down to Lake Chelan. I assumed it might have been an old road now overgrown, but after hiking it, I am pretty sure it is a fire cut, possibly from the Twenty Five Mile Creek fire in 2021.

This was only my second time up Slide Ridge Road, the other occasion being a fun fall hike on Stormy Mountain to view the larches with my family a couple of years ago. I had plugged the coordinates into Google Maps, which I was thankful for, as even though I look at the ridge every day, I wouldn't have been certain I had the correct pull out without the confirmation of the map. After parking my car in the pullout, I followed an opening in the vegetation and after a hundred yards or so was confident this was the cut I saw on the satellite images.

Start of the hike

It appears to be a relatively new fire cut, as it is well defined without a lot of vegetation growing. There were quite a bit of branches on the ground, but all things considered, it was pretty easy to navigate through the cut. It will start to become more overgrown in the future, but I'm sure that will take some time.

First views of Lake Chelan

In less than a mile I was on the sub ridge, and found a spot that allowed me to safely get up to the edge and look down over 3,500 feet below to Lake Chelan. While the east side of the ridge that drops down to the lake is very steep, the west side is more mellow. There were a couple of areas I had to hike down that were on the steeper side, but there were small sections and had no exposure.

Selfie on the ridge

Living in the area and seeing the lake every day, I didn't expect to take so many photos. But it was a different perspective of the lake, and it is quite striking being so high above with unobstructed views. Not to mention a little adrenaline bump every time I got close to the edge for a photo.

Lake Chelan in all its glory

I lost track of the fire cut at times, as the terrain was fairly open and it was easy to hike near the edge. It looked like the cut veered more to the western side of the ridge, and in sections where there was thicker vegetation it was easy to pick up the cut again. After a while, I saw a knob which I recognized, and figured that would be a good turn around point.

Turn around in sight

Reaching the knob, I found a nice rocky outcropping to sit on and hydrate and eat while I took in views of the lake. I couldn't stop thinking about how if this was turned into a legitimate trail, it would make hands down the best car accessible hike in Lake Chelan.

Wapato Point

After a nice long break, I began the trek back up. On the way down, I hadn't really noticed the heat, but that definitely wasn't the case on the way back up. It was in the mid 90's, and man was I feeling it on the steeper sections. About half way back up my wife texted saying she had picked up my son and they wanted to know if I could snap a photo of them on our deck. I zoomed in as much as I could with my iPhone, but couldn't make them out.

Max zoom photo of my house

Fun to get off trail and explore something I look at every day. I think it's doable for my family, although I would definitely opt for cooler temperatures next time.