Driving to the Glacier Peak Resort Campground that was situated on the western side of North Cascades National Park required pulling our 30′ travel trailer over the North Cascades Highway. Trucks and trailers are allowed on the road, but it isn’t an easy drive – especially at the end of two long days of travel.
For all the climbs, twists and turns, and pull-offs to let faster moving traffic behind us around, the North Cascades Highway (Route 20) did offer beautiful views of snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, the Ross Lake recreation area, and the stunning aquamarine Diablo Lake.
We stopped at the Diablo Lake overlook for a better look and a few pictures, and read about the lake and its unique color, which apparently comes from the sediment produced by glaciers crushing rock. Nature never ceases to amaze me.
Our campground was rustic and not within walking distance of town, but we were stocked up with groceries from our stop in Grand Coulee, WA, and we were happy to be parked, set up, and have a place to call home for three nights. After dinner our first night, we walked down the river path across the road from our campground entrance. The river path houses most of the campground’s tent camping sites and access to the Skagit River. Our youngest fished for a while with no success, and then decided that splashing in the water was a better use of his time, while the rest of us waded in the cold, crystal clear waters for a bit before resting at a picnic table on shore and enjoying the scenery around us.
Every body of water we have found West of the Rockies has been absolutely pristine. Bright blues and greens and aquamainres – stunning colors, but also, always, clear.
Monday morning we set out for our first of two full days to explore North Cascades National Park and surrounding areas. With less traffic and no reservation needed to explore North Cascades NP (there are no entry gates requiring a pass that we found), we didn’t need to rush out before 7 am to guarantee easy entrance to the park. Sleeping in a bit was a treat! We chose to hike the Thunder Knob trail first – a 3.4 mile out and back trail that offered a lookout over snow-capped mountains and a few overlooks of Diablo Lake at the top of the climb.
You can’t win them all every day, and while we’d done really well keeping spirits high through three other National Parks and many, many hikes, we had one reluctant hiker among us. It took a lot of encouragement and an energy sucking amount of patience, but we did all finally make it to the top. The views at the top were stunning and, as always, so very well worth the climb. We had a chance to sit on some rocks and look out at the beauty of Diablo Lake and the North Cascades, and have a snack.
I think our reluctant hiker learned a lot that day too. I think that was the hike where the realization that no – it isn’t always fun every minute of every hike, and yes – hiking can be difficult at times, but also yes – the sense of accomplishment when you’ve finished a hike, and almost always the views, are well worth it.
We knew our crew just didn’t have it in us to drive all the way back over the highway to the Blue Lake trail which was really the only hike left in our length range. North Cascades is packed with hikes, but the vast majority of them are listed as 10 or more miles. So we picnicked by Diablo Lake and spent a little time relaxing, enjoying the lakeside, and, not surprisingly, our youngest jumped right in.
Back at the camper over dinner and a campfire, we made the bold decision to call our North Cascades hiking and exploring complete with our scenic drive over the highway, Thunder Knob hike, and time at Diablo Lake. We all needed a rest and a little change of pace, so on the advice of a kind employee at an outfitter’s store in Winthrop, WA the day before, we decided to drive to Anacortes in the morning and take a ferry to the San Juan Islands for the day!
