Wilderness Wandering

August 15, 2024

We left Olympic National Park and headed to the port town of Kingston, WA. For fun, we decided to take the ferry across Puget Sound.  We arrived at 1:15 PM, but the 1:30 PM ferry was full. We parked and walked around the cute town and got some ice cream. We were back in the van at 2:15 PM for our 2:30 PM departure.  The crossing took 30 minutes. The ferry was an excellent option. Quick and painless.  We disembarked at Edmonds, WA. The next 2 hours spent in Seattle afternoon traffic were not quick or painless. 

Once free from the gridlock we enjoyed the drive to North Cascades. We arrived around 5 PM. As Tim checked out our surroundings he noticed many WI license plates around us. We had a fun evening spending time with our WI neighbors. There were 3 couples from Green Bay who travel together frequently who were on their way to Anacortes Island to do a multi day bike adventure with PAWS (Pedal Across Wisconsin). I have seen their rides on line. Now I want to do one! All the couples had the same style raindrop camper.  The other Wisconsin people were three young men from various parts of WI who were traveling together. They said they hope to one day have a van like us. For now, all three and their camping stuff were traveling in a 2005 Pontiac Vibe with 200,000 miles on it.  I currently drive a 2004 Pontiac Vibe. The owner and I commiserated about all the things that have broken on them recently. 

August 17, 2024

We walked around saying good bye to all our new WI friends and then were at the visitor center at 9:00. We got our passport stamp and spoke with the Ranger about hikes.  

The North Cascades have been referred to as The U.S. alps. There are hundreds of glaciers and many pure alpine lakes. The mountains are named The Cascades because of all the waterfalls streaming out of the mountains. This is the only National Park that is three park units operated as one: North and South Units of The North Cascades NP, Ross Lake National Recreation Area and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. There are 400 miles of hiking trails around the 684,000 acres of the park. It is one of the least visited parks with less than 40,000 visitors per year. 

Much of the park is closed because of wildfires. Rainy Lake, Blue Lake and Maple Pass Loop that we had hoped to do were closed. Diablo Lake Trail and Thunder Knob Trail were recommended and open. We decided to do Diablo Lake. It’s 7.6 miles round trip with 1300 feet of elevation gain. There is an option to take a ferry out and hike back. We decided to do that. The ferry left from Diablo Dam at 10:30 AM. We were there at 10:00 and there were many boats and watercraft there but no signs as to which boat we needed. We ran into other people looking for the boat. About 10:25 an official looking person showed up where we were waiting and we asked him. He pointed to a boat a good 1/2 mile away and said that’s the boat. We took off, but didn’t make it. It pulled out promptly at 10:30. 

Our plan B was The Thunder Knob Trail, 3.6 miles roundtrip with 635’ elevation gain. The views of Diablo Lake from Thunder Knob were excellent. There were many people paddle boarding, kayaking and swimming in the lake. Our hike ended with a stroll across the beach. 

Since we scheduled several days here, and many of the hikes aren’t available, we decided to look into rafting on The beautiful Skagit River. We found Cascadia Rafting with  140 five star reviews and set up rafting for Sunday afternoon. 

August 18, 2024

There was a huge thunderstorm last night. We appreciate Calypso every night, but especially when it rains. We had a leisurely morning. We walked on some trails near the campground and the Newhalem area. About 4 miles total with just a little elevation.  There is a huge dam nearby on The Skagit River. The dam generates 25% of the power for Seattle. We walked two paths that the power plant put in for the community, Ladder Falls and Trail of the Cedars. 

We returned to the campground and powered up the Jackery and had lunch. After lunch we drove to the launch site for our rafting trip on the Skagit River. We met our guides and we were lucky to be the only two for that run. The river was gorgeous! We ran a few class 3 rapids and got a little damp. Summer is short here. We saw snow falling on a mountain peak. The guides were very nice young men. One of our guides was an avid flyer fisherman, and mountain biker. We learned more about salmon fishing in the area and enjoyed the trip very much! One rapids we paddled was nicknamed The Skaginator. Tim liked the nickname. 

It began to rain again, so enjoyed our dinner, and did some reading in the van until it was bedtime. 

August 19, 2024

We started the day with The Lake Diablo hike where we ferried out and hiked back. The hike is a moderate 8 miles round trip with 1300’ of elevation gain. We began with a gorgeous 25 minute ride on the ferry from the trailhead to Ross Lake. The ride is $10 each. On the ride, we talked with a woman from Norway who was going back country hiking. Norway has national parks, but she likes to come to the U.S. parks because the wildlife is more visible! 

We disembarked and found the trail head. We had beautiful views of the turquoise lake as we started. We also had a small debate on whether the appropriate adjective to describe the water was teal, turquoise, aqua or blue-green-LOL!  The reason these lakes and rivers are these fantastic colors is due to glacial flour. The small pieces of glacial rock reflect the sun and make the water appear more colorful. When it was cloudy, the colors weren’t as brilliant. The trail wound through thick forest so the trail was carpeted with fragrant pine needles. The trail wasn’t the most scenic we have been on, but when we could see the lake and dam, it was eye catching!

We had some time to kill in the afternoon, so we wandered into the nearest town of Marblemount and had an elderberry cider at Upriver Grill & Taproom. We also shared a great slice of carrot cake. 

We hung out at the campsite until it got dark and went back to Newhalem. We learned that Newhalem is one of the last active “company towns”, where employees work and live on company property and eat communal meals. We walked Ladder Falls Trail a few days ago. We returned to do it after dark because SLC Seattle Lighting Company who runs the dam system lights the trail nightly at dusk. We leave North Cascades in the morning. 

I think North Cascades is one of those parks that people 

“in the know” don’t want other people to find out about! Several of the parks we saw  this trip were quite crowded.  It’s very refreshing to really escape crowds, like we did here.  I hope they can get the fires out and reopen more of the park soon. 

Firefighters encampment