Biohazard Cleanup Near West Baring Baring, WA

Baring is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in northeastern King County, in the valley of the South Fork Skykomish River.

Baring sits on U.S. Highway 2 about 23 miles west of Stevens Pass, along a flat, straight three-mile stretch of highway dubbed the 'Baring Straight' — a play on the Bering Strait — because the road is otherwise hilly and curvy.

The community was first known as Salmon, and by 1909 it had taken the name Baring.

Baring grew up with the Great Northern Railway's Stevens Pass route, surveyed by John F. Stevens; the first train passed through the valley in June 1893.

King County finished its 28-mile section of the Cascade Scenic Highway through Baring by 1917; the first automobiles crossed Stevens Pass in 1924, the highway officially opened in July 1925, and it later became U.S. Route 2.

The census counted 140 people in Baring in 1910 and 233 people in 105 households in 2000.

Baring's population was 220 at the 2010 census and rose to 255 at the 2020 census.

The Baring CDP covers about 1.1 square miles, about a tenth of it water, at an elevation of 774 feet.

Baring has an oceanic climate with about 110 inches of precipitation and roughly 44 inches of snow in an average year, making it one of the wetter communities along the U.S. Route 2 corridor.