Leslie and David's Wanderings: 18 August 2019 North Cascades National Park

After watching the Sunday church service, live on YouTube, we decided to make our initial foray into Cascades National Park. We went to the North Cascades NP Visitor Center near the historic town of Newhalem. After checking out the limited exhibits, collecting our45th Passport Stamp,shopped in the gift store, we talked with the rangers to figure out the hiking options. While in Carlsbad Caverns we had talked to the ranger leading our cave tour, and she had given us three day hikes that she liked. We had also checked with the authors of Dear Bob and Sue, Matt and Karen Smith, who recommended two of the same hikes. So we talked those over with the ranger. They would be challenging hikes due to the amount of elevation gain you have with hikes in this national park. There is only one road running through the park, state highway 20, which runs past three lakes formed by dams used to provide power to Seattle. The lakes (Gorge, Diablo and Ross Lakes) and the highway are on national forest service land, which cuts the national park in two. There are a couple of through park trails on the north side, otherwise the trails generally are on the border of the park with many starting on National Forest Service land before going into the national park. Ninety Three percent of the park is wild life refuge, which limits human access. There are over 300 Glaciers in North Cascades NP, more then all the other national parks combined. The northern Cascades are called the “Alps of America” due to their steep vertical sides and deep glacier cut valleys. We forgot to stay for the park movies, so we will have to go back on a rainy day.

After the visitor center, we went to the Historic Town of NewHalem. The town was founded to support the building of the three dams and the power system to send the generated power to Seattle (Almost 1GW combined). After crossing a suspension bridge over the Skagit River, we hiked the short Trail of the Cedars and once again walked amongst the old Western Cedar, Douglas Fir and Black Cottonwood trees. There is something very soothing about walking through old growth forests.

Following Newhalem, we drove down WA20 to the Gorge Lake, Diablo Lake, and Ross Lake overlooks before back tracking to the Wanderer. We also noticed a sign in the town of Marblemount and realized that we would be leaving before the big Sasquatch Festival!