North Cascades National Park, Washington

July 24, 2023

As mentioned at the end of the last post, we had stopped for a few hours in a sunny parking lot along our drive to the next destination to charge our batteries. We walked to the grocery store to pick up a few things and were hit with the sudden realization that we were not in the Midwest anymore (not that we have been in a long time)...

That's some pretty pricey corn

They did have Washington grown cherries on sale for a pretty good price, so we picked up some of those. They were the sweetest, juiciest cherries Julie thought she ever had. Rick thought they were fine.

After we absorbed enough sun rays to get our batteries to a respectable level, it was time to get a move on to our next destination.

Another pretty drive

Despite the fact that the campsite was a "pull-through", we could not actually drive straight in because of the tight curve of the driveway and the tree placement. Luckily, backing in was relatively easy. Because there had been a fire here in 2015, the tree cover was not so dense, so we were hopeful to get more solar here than in our previous couple of campgrounds.

The next morning we walked to the nearby visitor center and along some of the paths adjacent to the campground.

The Skagit River

The next day we explored the area around Diablo Lake. We started with the Thunder Knob trail (4 miles).

Fun little wobbly bridge over the creek. We didn't notice the sign until after taking this picture.

Amazing water color

There were quite a few switchbacks, but they were pretty tame

Our first peak of Diablo Lake

Diablo Lake was an amazingly bright color

After hiking back down from Thunder Knob, we stopped for a picnic lunch to see the lake from a different vantage point.

The color of the lake changes based upon its depth and from where it's viewed

The day was a bit hot, so the cold water felt great (in small doses)

The snowmelt was pretty cold for swimming, but this guy was brave

This is the best way to get up close and personal with the local wildlife

On the drive back, we stopped for yet another view of Diablo Lake.

We also stopped at a short trail to one of the hydroelectric dams in the area.

This was the best vantage point of the dam

Quite the engineering feat!

Most of the rest of our time was spent enjoying the gorgeous warm weather close to camp, taking in the numerous little trails along the Skagit River and Newhalem Creek.

The understory is starting to grow back after the 2015 fire

Getting a little off-trail

Is that a walking stick? 😉 (no - it is a wading stick 😎)

At the confluence of Newhalem Creek with the Skagit River

It was mesmerizing watching the water go by

Despite the fact that North Cascades National Park has Highway 20 going right through it (you can hear traffic noise from many of the scenic attractions), the location is pretty remote in that it is far from services such as grocery stores, motels, gas stations, and other conveniences. (Although, we had pretty solid cell service at the campground--go figure.) We ended up driving close to an hour for church on Sunday.  But, the "Sunday drive" was a scenic one!

There are lots of rivers in this area

We had had beautiful warm weather for several days in a row, so it was time to pay the piper on Monday--a cool and cloudy day with occasional drizzle. This was the perfect opportunity to work on the blog and for Rick to make bread.

As hoped, we were able to charge our batteries fully most days (without much to spare), so that was a win! We published this post while it was rainy and cloudy, so we'll have to see how the recharging goes the rest of the day.

Rick's random internet tech update:

We had contemplated getting Starlink for this year, as we knew that cellular coverage was not great in the northwestern states. We ultimately decided against it when we realized that the same places that have poor cell coverage also have really dense tree coverage (lots of really tall trees really close together do not allow for good satellite reception).  

As predicted, we have had several locations where we didn't have cell coverage, and those locations did indeed correspond with places where Starlink probably would not have worked.  Additionally, we have discovered that we can usually drive not too far to get a decent signal to post the blog, make reservations, have video chats, catch up on email, etc. So, we feel the decision not to purchase Starlink was probably best for us.

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