  The study of high-energy gamma rays from passive Giant Molecular Clouds
(GMCs) in our Galaxy is an indirect way to characterize and probe the paradigm
of the "sea" of cosmic rays in distant parts of the Galaxy. By using data from
the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, we measure the gamma-ray
flux above 1 TeV of a set of these clouds to test the paradigm.
  We selected high-galactic latitude clouds that are in HAWC's field-of-view
and which are within 1~kpc distance from the Sun. We find no significant excess
emission in the cloud regions, nor when we perform a stacked log-likelihood
analysis of GMCs. Using a Bayesian approach, we calculate 95\% credible
intervals upper limits of the gamma-ray flux and estimate limits on the
cosmic-ray energy density of these regions. These are the first limits to
constrain gamma-ray emission in the multi-TeV energy range ($>$1 TeV) using
passive high-galactic latitude GMCs. Assuming that the main gamma-ray
production mechanism is due to proton-proton interaction, the upper limits are
consistent with a cosmic-ray flux and energy density similar to that measured
at Earth.
