A Final Tour of the North Cascades

I was due to begin easing southerly soon, spending two weeks near Rainier and St Helens before returning home to Oregon.  The day after visiting Mt Baker, I headed off for Diablo Lake.  I had driven past the lake enroute to see John and Marcia, but the weather was bad and I was in Enterprise, so I was not really set for wandering and exploration that time.

THIS time, however, the weather was great.  I headed off to Diablo Lake.  This is a reservoir that is fed by glacial meltwater.  This means that much of the water holds extremely fine particles of rock flour in suspension.  When the sun interacts with this water, the very pale milky color becomes a pale green.

When I was visiting John and Marcia, they wanted to take me to see Washington Pass, an overlook and very short hike before the North Cascades Highway drops down toward the Methow Valley.  Unfortunately it was closed for maintenance.

I learned that Washington Pass was now open and decided that another 30 miles or so were not enough of an impediment to not see this location.  I continued east to Washington Pass.  I was glad I went.

On my way back to my campground, I passed a turnoff from Marblemount for the Cascades River Road and trailhead.  I had time and fuel, and I was not too tired, so I went exploring.  The road was long, and much of it was 1 lane gravel road with turnouts, rough in places, steep in places, but definitely worth the trip.  Views along the way showed me the classic appearance of the peaks of the Cascades.

The Rockies seem, to me, to be jagged but layered.  The Sierras are epitomized by the smooth granite walls and rounded domes of Yosemite.  The Cascades were born in fire and seem to me to be great, jagged, ragged peaks.  The only smoothness comes from the glacier-sculpted valleys, shown to me so nicely from the end of the roadway high in the North Cascades.

The side trip was completely spontaneous, but it made my day.