06/16/2025
Put this map of the North Cascades together last week for a couple celebrating their anniversary. They wanted something for their gear wall that captured their time exploring these mountains, from Winthrop and El Dorado Peak to Lake Chelan and everything in between.
The base is a 1962 USGS topo. I always come back to maps from this era for the balanced typography, the hand-drawn contours, and the way the linework holds detail without crowding the landscape. I’ve always admired the cartographers who assembled these quadrangles with such precision and restraint. I recolored it and added shaded relief to bring more depth to the terrain and soften the original palette while keeping the vintage character and timeless clarity of the original intact.
