Visit to North Cascades National Park

Yesterday we drove into North Cascades National Park...

We stopped at the Visitor Center in Newhalem and took their recommendation on what to do for a half day.

We started with the walk outside the back door of the Visitor Center - The Sterling Munro Trail

It was a nice easy boardwalk path...

To a signboard that told us that we were seeing the Picket Range.

There they are in the distance!

And a little zoomed in - the snow patch on the right side of center is a glacier.

We next stopped at Gorge Creek.

After crossing the road, we walked out on this bridge...

A *long* ways down was a creek - see the shadow of the bridge? those two knobby things on the top of the shadow are the shadows of our heads...

It was really hard to get a picture of the falls because they were in shadow and the mountain next to them was in sunshine... but there is a long narrow set of falls in there.

The bridge deck was "open" - I just didn't look down... Dwayne took a picture looking down.

We then followed a trail where we could see the Gorge Lake (through the trees)...

Again, a nice trail - wide and relatively level.

Some additional views of the lake...

This was down near the dam.

One thing I particularly liked was that they had information signs telling the characteristics of the trail... this was the part of the trail that went on from the area that overlooked the dam.

It was also a nice trail - not quite as wide and a little more elevation change...

It did narrow down a bit in places...

But then it widened back out - altogether, a nice trail.

Then we stopped at Diablo Lake. The new friends we met at the campground in Newport, Rick and Jackie, had recommended this overlook, and it was beautiful!

There are a number of dams on the river valley in this area, generating electricity for Seattle.

This sign shares why the lake has such a beautiful blue-green color.

After stopping at Diablo Lake, we headed to the Happy Creek Forest Walk and Falls Trail.

This was a beautiful peaceful place - not much undergrowth under the trees as the overstory was so dense.

We eventually came upon the babbling "Happy Creek".

The trail proceeded further to falls, but we did not go on that trail.

A beautiful picture of the trees by Dwayne!

Just a little bit of sun peeking through!

The trees grew very thickly in some places - in this particular case, so thickly that when one fell, it didn't reach the ground... You can also see the trail that was primarily boardwalk - there were a couple of places where it was on the ground, but most was above the forest floor.

A closeup of some of the moss on a tree.

It was very peaceful, tranquil...

The furthest point east we drove to were overlooks of Ross Lake...

Somewhere way in the background is Hozomeen Mountain, which is at the Canadian border.

This sign happened to be right at the overlook, which allowed me to get a picture of it. I've seen this sign a few times as we've been driving - our RV Driving School instructor had told us (back in 2014 when we first took lessons) to watch out for this as they would ticket you if you hold up traffic for too long. I'm pretty aware of traffic piling up behind and try to use pullouts where I can do so safely anyway, but Washington State is the only place I've seen these signs.

Finally, as we got back to Newhalem, we stopped to see the railroad engine there...

Information about Engine Number 6.

Dwayne checking out the locomotive.

We also stopped at the General Store (which was not closed, even though this sign seems to indicate it was).

I found it interesting the mix of man-made and natural things in a National Park (particularly the dam-created lakes). It is also a less-visited National Park - I overheard one of the park rangers telling another guest that it is a "wilderness" park. There were no entry fees - I'm not sure how entry fees would be charged since a main east-west road goes through it (State Route 20). It was nice not to have the crush of visitors that we experienced at Yellowstone.

One last picture (screenshot) from today:

Huh? Frozen Mix?

 Since the temperature prediction is not for below freezing weather, we're thinking this might be for higher elevations - or... that's what we're HOPING! We're scheduled to leave here on Monday heading for British Columbia for a few days... it is nice that rain is predicted for the area... but, hopefully no frozen mix!