North Cascades Area (08-17-24)

 Having never been to North Cascades National Park, we definitely wanted to spend some time in this area. We started with a few days in Leavenworth Washington. From there our plan was to spend a few days on the east side of the park, in a small town called Twisp, and then head to the west side for a few days, staying in the town of Rockport WA.  Although that IS what we did, our plan did not go exactly smoothly.

Again with the heat being what it is, we booked a full service campground, which ended up being a KOA. These are so kid oriented we usually avoid them, but didn’t have much choice.

It was nice that this particular campground is on the Wenatchee River. Since the pool was literally wall to wall people, we chose to cool off in the river. We did that by signing up with a tubing company. Conveniently located within the KOA, we took our rented tubes, floated down the river for about two hours, and we driven back to the campground by the tubing company. I didn’t bring a camera, so I stole this off the web.

A surprising highlight for us at the KOA was an adults only cider tasting, with live music, hard cider, beer, and wine.

Leavenworth is known as a  Bavarian village,  complete with a downtown shopping area with restaurants etc. We did a drive by but didn’t feel like walking it, or shopping it.

Instead, our other adventure was a 4 mile hike around Icicle Gorge.

This was a great hike with lots to see and not too much elevation gain.

We did also attempt to swim at Lake Wenatchee State Park, but the crowds were such that they were actually turning people away at the entrance. Oh well.

The wildfires are never far from our thoughts- especially one of them in particular. The “Easy Fire” is in the center of North Cascades National Park, and it is so close to the main road that the road has been closed on and off for the last week or so. The day we left for Twisp, it was closed again, although for this leg of our journey, it didn’t affect us.

One of the perks of being in the camper is that we can more easily stop along the way to our destination and do a hike, or explore in some other way. On the way to Twisp we stopped in the town of Chelan, and hiked a 4 mile hike, up 1100 ft.  to a butte called Elephant Head.

It was extremely hot, with not much shade, but the views at the top made it worthwhile. It was smoky because there is yet another wildfire at the other end of Lake Chelan.

  Another perk was that once we made it down the hill to the camper, we could eat lunch in our “home”, and I got to take a shower before we hit the road.

Our “main event” in Twisp was the hike to Blue Lake, inside North Cascades NP.  On the way there we stopped at the scenic overlooks , but the smoke was pretty bad at that point in time. Still, it was worth the stop.

The hike to Blue Lake is almost 5 miles round trip, and 900 ft of gain. It is what we call a twofer…the views along the trail were awesome, and the destination was stunning, to say the least.

I took so many pictures, it’s hard to pick out just a few. Blue Lake is about the furthest we could go into the park due to the closed road, so we felt lucky that we could do the hike.

Our second day we elected to give the Bronco a work out instead of us- we took it on the backroads, headed to Slate Peak. The road there was interesting enough to keep Paul’s attention, but not so bad that I was (too) nervous.

The road ends near a fire tower (not in use right now) and the last half mile is done on foot.

Again, the views were really good, and we spent some time watching people down below us hike the 2640 mile long Pacific Crest Trail. The trail has a detour in this area because of the fires.

Our wish for the road to re-open so we could drive through North Cascades to the other side was not granted- it was still closed so we had to drive all the way down, back through Leavenworth, and north again, to Rockport- it added 5 hours of driving to our route.

Rockport is also on a river- the Skagit River. Without a doubt this is the most beautiful river I have ever seen.

The color comes from what is called glacial flour, or glacial silt, a fine dust that creates a glacier like look to the water. In fact, 370 glaciers feed this river in the summer time.  I oohed and ahhhed the entire time we were driving along the river.

We were headed towards Diablo Lake, exploring along the way there.

If I thought the Skagit River was gorgeous, it was just a prelude to Diablo Lake!

We drove around checking out the viewpoints, but we were also on a waitlist for a boat tour of the lake.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to go, but just spending the day near the lake was awesome.

We noticed as we drove that there was smoke on a nearby hillside. We thought it was the Easy fire, but it turns out that lightning had started yet another fire the night before.

We spent some time watching the planes and helicopters work the fire.

The planes kept flying around in a circular pattern around the blaze, and we heard later that they were measuring the size of the fire and mapping it.

Our serious hike in this area was Sauk Mountain Trail. The road getting there was interesting on it’s own- very slow going up a bunch of switchbacks- coincidently, that’s exactly what the trail was like- a bunch of switchbacks.

When a hiker sees a trail that looks like this, you know you are gaining elevation at a rapid pace- which is exactly what I had to do- pace myself.

There was no shortage of things to look at and keep our interest, so it wasn’t too hard.

At the top there was some (not much) bouldering involved. I kinda like that though.

In the end we did about ( I accidently shut off my tracker) 4.5 miles and 1300 ft of gain.

Officially Meandering the PNW (08-12-24)

 

Well, if we were “weaving around” in my last blog post I think we can officially say we are “meandering” through the northwestern states in this post. If we make a reservation, its only a day or so in the future (not always a good idea) but mostly if you ask where we will be in two days, we have no idea.

After leaving La Grand Oregon, we made a short two day stop in Kellogg Idaho. For the first time in a loooonnngg time, we are not here to hike, but to bike. Hiawatha Bike trail is a historic rails to trails path. It is federally owned but run by a concessionaire. The trail is about 14 miles long, and is known for it’s tunnels. There are about 10 that you ride through.  If you have your own bike you can use that- otherwise you have to rent one, which is what we did. They give you a helmet (optional to wear) and a flashlight- mandatory. We didn’t want to trust their flashlights, so we brought our own, and our headlamps.

Turns out that was very smart. We picked up the bikes in one location and then put them on the bike rack they lent us and drove to the trailhead. I, for one, was a bit wobbly on the bike at first. It’s been years since I have ridden one.

Unfortunately the first tunnel begins about 100 yards down the path, so I had no time to acclimate before I was thrust into darkness. And it was DARK. This tunnel is 1.7 miles long- yeah, you read that right. It took us about 15 minutes to reach the other end. There is water seeping into the tunnel constantly, so there are puddles, and you have the choice of riding fast and getting it over with, or riding slow enough that the mud does not spray up all over your back. 

The first time through (yep, you have to go through this particular tunnel on the way back, as well. Oh Joy.) I went slow enough that I didn’t my back muddy.  I can honestly say I did not enjoy my first trip and definitely wasn’t looking forward to the return. It was really hard to see where I was going, and all the kids were having a grand old time screaming at the top of their lungs to hear the echo. I understand, but I didn’t enjoy it. 15 minutes of screaming.

I was terrified of falling off the bike, haha and had to keep reminding myself of the old adage “if you think you are going to fall, you will.” I did make it the whole way without falling. My pictures are blurry because I couldn’t use my cell phone so I had to lift the camera, turn it on, aim, take a picture, and shut it back off, all with one hand as I am riding the bike, trying not to fall off.

None of the other tunnels were nearly as long as the first one, and they weren’t wet either, so that was nice.

In addition to the tunnels, there are several trestles that you ride over, with some pretty decent views.

The ride itself, once we got used to being on a bike, wasn’t difficult because it was mostly downhill with a gentle grade.

There were signs along the trail detailing the history of the railroad. It was built in the early 1900s to carry freight and passengers to areas out west, which it did, until 1977 when the last train made it’s last trip. Over the years the trains changed from steam, to electric, and then to diesel. The last passenger train, the Olympian Hiawatha, was known for its luxury seating and it’s top speed of 100 mph.

Although I am not a fan of the tunnels, at one time, they played a huge role in saving lives. in 1910, the largest forest fire in U.S history destroyed 3 million acres in Montana and Idaho. When the fire came roaring into town, the train engineers loaded townspeople onto the train and drove it into one of the long tunnels. Everyone in the tunnel survived the fire.

Oh, and as a side note, when we started out, I had to pull over, stop, turn on my headlamp, and then stop again after the tunnel to shut it back off. After a few tunnels, I mastered the art of turning it on and off without stopping- yay me!

Next stop on our meander was the town of Post Falls Idaho- it’s very close to Coeur D’Alene, which we have been to before.

Post Falls gave us a chance to do some laundry, shopping and some hiking. There are two local forests with hiking- Q”emiln Park and Post Falls Community Forest.

We hiked in both. The parks are adjacent to each other, so our trails each day actually overlapped. Each hike was between 4 and 5 miles long and gave more bang for the buck than we expected.

They also both have views of the Spokane River, which runs through the town.

Our next main destination was Leavenworth Washington, but we stopped a couple of places on the way there. The heat is such that we weren’t looking to do too much hiking, so we were more interested in scenic drives.

The one hike we did during that time was 4.5 mile hike up and around Mill Butte. The trail meandered through the forest before leading us to the actual butte.

Once at the top, both of our phones pinged and we realized we had gotten cell service. Looking at the clouds we decided to take advantage of the signal and check the weather. We elected to hightail it out of there, and although we did get rained on, it wasn’t too bad.

We finished that day by driving through Little Pend Oreille (pronounced Pondoray) National Wildlife Refuge, stopping at most of the interpretive signs.

In addition to the wildlife refuge, we took several other scenic roads- one had an interpretive area showing some of the history of the lumber companies who built up this area- it also talked about the work that the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) did in the 1930s. Created by Franklin Roosevelt, The CCC did incredible work all over the country. It was an innovative solution to abject poverty during the depression, to pair young able bodied men who needed work,  with the need to shore up and strengthen our natural resources. In the Pacific Northwest these men built 600 forest lookout structures, 85,000 miles of roads, and planted millions of trees- among other things.

Their work truly withstands the test of time. This building is still standing, having been built by them in the mid 1930s.

Not every “scenic drive” is all that scenic, and the other one we went on pretty much fit into that category. Along the drive there were signs pointing out where mining towns had been,  and explaining why they weren’t there anymore (usually the gold ran out.)

This particular mine, Bodie, was owned at one point by the Wrigley Brothers (of chewing gum fame). Several of the towns were actually moved to new locations, following the gold- hence  town names like Old Wauconda and New Wauconda. 

In addition to seeing a lot of information about projects done by the CCC, we also frequently come across projects done by Eagle Scouts.  We always find these fun to see, because Paul was also an Eagle Scout.

T

he funniest part of the day was when we drove down a small federal road looking for a place to have lunch. These cows stared and stared at us, as if they had never seen a human before.