The tall, bare face of Mount Si dominates the horizon, a steep ridge above the town that stands about 1,270 metres tall and is one of the most climbed hills in Washington. Behind it the range goes on, forest after forest, to the passes.
Snoqualmie Falls is the place that visitors come for, a few minutes off the road. The river drops about eighty metres, more than Niagara, in a single plume into a pool, with spray rising in the air and a viewing platform on the cliff above. It is sacred to the Snoqualmie people, who regard the mist as a link between earth and sky. Lodge buildings stand at the top, and the power station at the base has been running since the 1890s. North Bend, the small town below Mount Si, became known to a worldwide audience when the television series Twin Peaks was filmed in this district in 1989 and 1990, and there is still a diner here that plays up the connection.
A rider coming back from the North Cascades Highway arrives on a long, quiet descent. State Route 20, over Washington Pass at about 1,675 metres, is closed by snow in winter, usually from November until April or May, and when it reopens it is among the finest roads in the Pacific Northwest, a smooth ribbon through granite spires and pine. The way home from there is the interstate, I-90, with trucks, rain and the flow of commuters, and the Snoqualmie Pass at about 920 metres is an easy crossing in summer but can be hit by chains and closures in winter.
North Bend and Snoqualmie are both large enough for fuel and food, and the town has bakeries and coffee shops with real character. Rain is a fact of life, particularly from October to May, and the Douglas firs, ferns and moss glow a wet, deep green. Late summer and early autumn are the best seasons, with warm days, dry roads and the first colour in the maples. Weekends bring heavy traffic to the falls, so a weekday visit is calmer. Take a rain layer even on a sunny morning, because the weather turns fast.