Northwest Cascades
Northwest Cascades is in the North Cascades region of Washington.
Cities
- 🌍 Anacortes - gateway to the San Juan Islands
- 🌍 Bellingham - county seat of Whatcom County and last US city before Canada on I-5
- 🌍 Birch Bay
- 🌍 Blaine - major border crossing with Canada
- 🌍 Bow - a small coastal village at south end of Chuckanut Drive, near Burlington
- 🌍 Burlington
- 🌍 Concrete
- 🌍 Ferndale
- 🌍 La Conner , famous for the local tulips and historic district
- 🌍 Lummi Island
- 🌍 Lynden , Dutch heritage and farming center
- 🌍 Mount Vernon - county seat of Skagit County a major tulip growing area.
- 🌍 Point Roberts - American enclaved community that you have to travel through Canada to reach by land
- 🌍 Sedro-Woolley
- 🌍 Sumas , border town
Other destinations
- Birch Bay State Park, on the coast 20 miles north of Bellingham and 10 miles south of Blaine
- Bay View State Park, on Padilla Bay, 7 miles west of Burlington and 14 miles east of Anacortes
- Larrabee State Park, six miles south of Bellingham on SR 11/Chuckanut Drive
- Mount Baker ski resort, on a mountain of the same name
- Artist Point on Mount Baker, a stiff hike to 5140', with a grand view at the top.
- Mt Baker Vista at the end of Glacier Creek Road (Forest Road 39)
- North Cascades National Park - Jagged peaks, deep valleys, cascading waterfalls and over 300 glaciers adorn the North Cascades National Park
- Peace Arch State Park (at the Canadian border in Blaine)
- Rasar State Park, on the Skagit River, 14 miles east of Burlington
- Rockport State Park, in an old-growth forest 8 miles east of Concrete
Commercial establishments
- Lake Whatcom Railway, on Highway 9 east of Lake Whatcom and Bellingham
- Skagit Speedway, Burlington
- Deming Speedway, a 1/6 mile clay oval auto racing track, 12 miles east of I-5 (Bellingham) on the Mount Baker Highway
- Skagit Valley Casino, Burlington
- Swinomish Casino & Lodge, Anacortes
Understand
This subregion consists of Whatcom County and Skagit County
Get in
By plane
🌍 Bellingham International Airport (BLI IATA) is the primary airport serving the region.🌍 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA IATA), while located a way to the south of Seattle, is the closest national-grade airport in the USA. 🌍 Vancouver International Airport (YVR IATA), while across the border in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada, is sometimes convenient.
By train
- Amtrak, ☏ +1 215-856-7924, toll-free: +1-800-872-7245. Amtrak Cascades runs a twice daily service between Seattle and Vancouver with stops in Everett, Mount Vernon, and Bellingham. Additional service to Seattle by Cantrail bus (see 'By bus' in the above), operating as the Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach. Connections to additional Amtrak trains are in Seattle.
From British Columbia
To cross this international border, you need an international travel document: a passport, a NEXUS card (see below), a US Passport Card, or certain US and Canadian "Enhanced ID" Drivers Licences. Most of these cards have Radio-Frequency ID (RFID) chips, which detectors can read when you wave the card in front of them. Some US-bound lanes are marked "Ready Lane" or "RFID". In these lanes you may use either a NEXUS card or another kind of RFID card. In the table below, some of the NEXUS hours actually NEXUS and Ready Lane hours.
There are five land border crossing points, between the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada and the Northwest Cascades region of Washington state, USA. They are referred to by different terms in Canada and the US.
| Hours NEXUS open, entering: | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian name | US name | Location | Hours open | Canada | US | Comments |
| 🌍 Boundary Bay | Point Roberts | Delta, BC (56th St) – Point Roberts, WA (Tyee Drive) | Daily 24 hours | Summer daily 7AM–7PM, winter none | Daily 9AM–7PM | This crossing is only useful for reaching Point Roberts, the US tip of a Canadian peninsula which extends just south of the 49° N latitude. There is no land access from there to the rest of the USA. |
| 🌍 Surrey (Douglas / Peace Arch) | Blaine (Peace Arch) | Surrey, BC (Highway 99) – Blaine, WA (Interstate 5) | Daily 24 hours | Daily 7AM–midnight | Daily 6AM–midnight | Primary border crossing point for cars. Foot and bicycle traffic also welcome. No commercial traffic allowed. Best NEXUS lane access. Canadian and US Customs offices here are good places to ask questions. |
| 🌍 Pacific Highway | Blaine (Pacific Highway) | Surrey, BC (Highway 15) – Blaine, WA (WA-543) (From Hwy 99 southbound take exit 2A and go along 8 Ave for 1.5 km to Hwy 15. From I-5 northbound take exit 275 for WA-543.) | Daily 24 hours | Daily 7AM–midnight | Daily 6AM–9PM | Also known as "Truck Crossing". Primary border crossing point for trucks and buses. Cars and foot traffic also welcome, with waits usually shorter than at Peace Arch. Canadian and US Customs offices here are good places to ask questions. |
| 🌍 Aldergrove | Lynden | Langley, BC (Highway 13) – Lynden, WA (WA-539, the Guide Meridian) | Daily 8AM–midnight | Daily 10AM–8PM | None | Due north of Bellingham. Often has shorter lines than Peace Arch and Pacific Highway, but also less capacity for line-ups. If you are going to or from Vancouver or the western suburbs the longer drive to Aldergrove usually outweighs the shorter lines. |
| 🌍 Huntingdon | Sumas | Abbotsford, BC (Highway 11) – Sumas, WA (WA-9) | Daily 24 hours | M–F 8AM–8PM, Sa Su, Hol 8AM–10PM | M–F 8AM–6PM, Sa Su 8AM–5PM | The Canadian side is Abbotsford BC. Less capacity for ine-ups than Peace Arch and Pacific Highway. |
Visitors travelling to Vancouver by car across the U.S. border should be aware that there are often lengthy lineups at the border, in either direction. During summer, waits at the border can exceed three hours during peak times.
Inform yourself about the waits, and you can either delay your crossing until the lines subside, or choose the quickest crossing, or at least set your expectations. You can see current wait time forecasts for both directions on the Canada Border Services Agency website , and for US-bound traffic on the US Customs and Border Protection website . Washington State also maintains charts of estimated times towards Canada . It can be helpful to view webcams of the border lineups; Canada-bound and US-bound . Two AM stations give regular updates on border lineups in both directions: News 1130 (1130 on the AM dial) every 10 minutes beginning at one minute past the hour, and AM 730 every 10-15 minutes. Electronic signs near the border on I-5, BC 99, #1 BC-11 and BC 15 give the current wait times at both the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway crossings, allowing you to choose the shorter option.
The NEXUS program lets travellers who fill out an application and pass a security check use express lanes through US-Canada land borders by presenting a NEXUS card. When regular lanes have backups, NEXUS lanes usually have much shorter waits. However, the NEXUS lanes impose many restrictions which regular lanes do not; e.g. everyone in your car must have a NEXUS card.
From Seattle and Puget Sound
Head north on Interstate 5 from Seattle. Mount Vernon, Burlington, Bellingham, Blaine and Ferndale are directly on the highway. Other towns are usually a short drive away on local highways: see the individual Get in sections of the towns.
From Eastern Washington
The North Cascades Highway (SR-20) runs from the Okanogan valley area across the Cascades to Burlington and Sedro-Woolley; it is always closed in winter. Two passes across the Cascades further south are usually open all year (except in storms): US-2 over Stevens Pass from Wenatchee and I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass from Ellensburg: when you reach I-5 you will have to turn north to reach this region.
By boat
- 🌍 Alaska Marine Highway System, toll-free: +1-800-642-0066. A ferry service from Bellingham, Washington up the Inside Passage to Haines, Alaska. Plan your travel early as this service tends to fill up fast.
- Washington State Ferries, ☏ +1 206 464-6400, toll-free: +1-800-843-3779. The Washington State Ferry system offers once or twice daily sailings from Sidney, BC to the San Juan Islands with continuing service to Anacortes. For security and immigration processing when traveling between the US and Canada, a 60-minute advance arrival is strongly suggested for vehicle traffic. Walk-on passengers must arrive 30 minutes in advance. Service to Sidney has been suspended since the Covid-19 pandemic and the operator has announced that service to Sidney is suspended until at least 2030 due to the lack of available ferries and crew.
- Several towns in the region, including Bellingham, Blaine and Anacortes, have marinas for private boats.