Hiking the Pacific Northwest

When to hike the Pacific Northwest

In September and October, all 8 destinations clear our recommendation criteria. Not one of them does from December to April.

Averaged across the destinations, July is the warmest month at 20 degrees in the hiking window and December the coldest at -1.

How far apart the destinations are

The selected grid cells run from 736 metres at Columbia River Gorge to 2,065 metres at Lassen Volcanic, with a median of 1,372 metres. Columbia River Gorge clears the criteria in 7 months (from May to November), Lassen Volcanic in 5 months (from June to October).

The longest season belongs to Columbia River Gorge, at 7 months (from May to November); the shortest to Mount Rainier, North Cascades and Mount Shasta, at 4 months each.

What closes the missing months

Where a destination loses months, a critical climate component falls below the threshold at which we stop recommending a month. The main reason is snow cover, for every one of the 8 destinations.

In January, the quietest month, every destination is closed, all of them by snow cover.

Conditions in September

September is when the open destinations score highest on average. Hiking-window temperature then runs from 13 degrees at Mount Rainier to 21 at Mount Shasta, and rain falls on 12 to 34 percent of days depending on the destination.

What these figures cover

Each destination is described by one selected ERA5-Land grid cell, averaged over 1991 to 2025. The figures above summarise those 8 cells. They are not a map of the whole area or of any route, and they are not a forecast.