North Cascades Mountain Guides and North Cascade Heli combine forces to bring you a 3 day trip like no other. Spend two days touring the powder paradise surrounding Washington Pass with North Cascades Mountain Guides, where wide open bowls, tree-lined hallways and endless pillow stacks lay just a short snowmobile ride away. Then, bump it up a notch with a heli-assisted touring day at North Cascade Heli. Leave the skins in the bag on your way out the door because every trip starts with a heli drop at the top of a long, tasty powder run.

Our family rock climbing program is one of the most popular family adventures in the Methow Valley. Join us for 4 hours of climbing in Mazama throughout the summer season. The program includes instruction, if desired, or can simply be a day of experiencing the art of rock climbing and rappelling.

We customize the entire adventure around your family’s abilities and goals — it can be a mellow climbing day including many breaks or can be non-stop challenging activity depending on your family.

Mazama is one of the best places in Washington to learn to rock climb or improve your climbing ability by focusing on technical skills. We create a safe, positive, and effective learning environment for climbers of all abilities. There are a number of routes in the beginner to moderate grades to chose from, which we have used to help hundreds of climbers find their way in this vertical environment. 

NCMG guide and author of the Supertopo guide to Washington pass, Ian Nicholson, calls this area “the best alpine rock destination in North America.”  With scores of classic climbs covering the full spectrum of difficulties, there is truly something here for everyone.  Offering an all snow approach in the early season, these climbs can have a distinctly alpine feel in the Spring and early Summer.  Later in the Summer, the approaches become snow free and most of these climbs can be reached in a pair of approach shoes in only an hour or two.  This allows us the unique opportunity to spend the

A short and fun snowmobile ride up the spectacular North Cascades Highway provides access to the best backcountry ski and splitboarding terrain in the state. With the annual closure of the North Cascades Highway in the late fall thanks to heavy snowfalls, the season for backcountry skiing adventure starts lasts well into April. The touring opportunities in this zone are plentiful, and superb by any measure.

NCMG Owners Jeff Ward and Larry Goldie are instructors and examiners for the American Mountain Guides Association guide training and certification programs.  Jeff is one of the lead instructors for the AMGA and also serves on the AMGA’s Technical Committee.  Larry is an AMGA instructor and examiner that also teaches Level 3 and Instructor training courses for AIARE.