We were on the road early again this morning because we knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us. We left Mt Rainier and drove north (back toward Seattle, uh oh). On our way INTO Mt Rainier yesterday, we were very grateful that we were going against rush-hour traffic. We had forgotten that when we left Mr Rainier, we’d be driving north, WITH rush-hour traffic. Ugh. It took us longer than we liked (and we did use the high-occupancy-vehicle lane for some of it), but we finally made it north of Seattle and on our way to North Cascades National Park. When we arrived in the park, we parked at the visitor center for the usual drill (passport stamps, orientation video, talking to the rangers, etc.) We learned that North Cascades NP is a park with both black and grizzly bears. We didn’t have time to do much hiking there, but there were two short trails we wanted to do. We hiked on a small trail behind the visitor center to see the peaks of the mountain range, and the Trail of Cedars in the town of Newhelem. It was sunny and a little warm in town, but the skies were still hazy from forest fire smoke. We hiked the Trail of Cedars and got back on the road to head up the mountain stopping at overlooks. One of the most beautiful places we stopped was the overlook to Diablo Lake. The lake was a beautiful deep blue-green color. Ringed in craggy mountain peaks and slim glacial valleys, the lake looked serene and removed from the rest of the world. This is one place we’d love to come back and stay, somewhere along the lake, where we can kayak and perhaps swim a bit, although we’re told the water is mainly from snow-melt and is VERY cold.
(click on any photo in the gallery above to scroll through the images full screen).
After leaving Lake Diablo we continued on the North Cascades Highway – thinking about a quote I read in a guidebook about this park being as close to ecologically pure as anything left in North America. All of the original plant and animal species that could be found in the park centuries ago, remain there now. We didn’t see any wildlife on our short visit to the park, but this is one park we are sure we’d like to return to someday!
After leaving North Cascades, we continued on toward Spokane, Washington. We were going to stay at the KOA there, but when we called, they were completely booked (and so were the next 6 campgrounds I called). We finally found a campground with a vacancy in Osburn, Idaho. It had full hookups, showers, and a laundry. We pulled in between 7 and 8 pm, checked in, and took our laundry over as quickly as possible. We did three loads – wash, dry, fold, and put away, in a few hours while we cooked and ate dinner, cleaned up the RV, took showers, and got ready for bed. The kids were excited about the following day which I’d planned for us to spend at a water park in Montana just outside of the entrance to Glacier National Park.
