North Cascades

Ah, North Cascades. Where do we start?? This was probably the most-anticipated part of our trip knowing that the hiking was going to be INSANELY beautiful. 

We had another beautiful campsite...

And it was within walking distance of the lake so of course that's where we went right after we finished setting up camp! I was looking at the sky and said to Neil "hmm, looks a little smoky? Hopefully it will blow out tomorrow." 

We got up early early our next morning to head out for our big giant exciting hike--our longest and hardest hike of the trip through Cascade Pass to the Sahale Arm Glacier. I think we got to the trailhead around 7 am (and it was a long drive to get there--an hour plus) so we started off in a beautiful fresh morning! 

The trail to the pass is about...30 switchbacks. 40? At one point I knew exactly because we were counting them. Well, we were counting them until we realized that a bear was keeping pace with us by cutting straight up the mountain while we were routing along the switchbacks! This was pretty nerve-wracking, we weren't sure if we should hike faster or slower. 

Finally the bear decided to take up residence about eight switchbacks into our journey together and planted itself in a patch of something and was munching away. We waited and waited and talked to the lone hiker guy who had dropped back to join us as soon as he saw the bear ahead, and finally after quite awhile all of us very carefully edged along the path (and the bear could have cared less about us). 

Goodbye, bear friend! See you later in the afternoon. 

As the trees started to open up, we realized that it was pretty smoky, and that what we thought was maybe the scent of some backpackers' fires was actually smoke filling the valley. 

I was torn between thinking it was so so gorgeous and wishing I knew what it looked like without the smoke, since it was getting thicker and starting to obscure the peaks. 

We learned later that the smoke was blowing up the valley from Stehekin, which we were basically hiking directly towards as we approached the pass. 

Still gorgeous though!

Once we got up to the pass, we had some little mountain goat friends accompanying us! The rocky path just above Luke's head goes up to a very scenic toilet that was currently buried in snow, much to our disappointment. 

At the top of the pass, we could look towards Stehekin and see the smoke rising higher and higher. 

We turned left to head up towards Sahale Glacier and immediately the trail got way more rocky/steep/tricky but the wildflowers were incredible! 

Pretty telling that I didn't take many photos in this bit, it was SO exhausting. But gosh those mountains were gorgeous even with the smoke! 

Okay--actually I did take a TON of photos in the middle bit of this, but they were all so smoky that you really couldn't see anything. And then the final approach to the top towards the backpacking camp was absolutely insane. Easily the hardest thing I've ever hiked in my life. We had been listening to a podcast earlier where the hosts were describing this hike and how they honestly thought they would not make it--they were not exaggerating, I cannot imagine doing that with a full backpack instead of a daypack! I also was really struggling with the smoke up here combined with the exertion--at one point I got so dizzy that I thought I would either throw up or pass out, and I had to sit down for awhile about five minutes from the very very top (we were basically hiking up a boulderfield that alternated between boulders and loose scree on a nearly vertical slope). But we finally made it to the top!!

It was very smoky and pretty cold. 

With more mountain goats! The rings the kids are standing in are the shelter rings built for backpackers. 

I had to look up the view later because I knew we were missing something amazing. :-(

Then it was time to start down--you can sort of get an idea of what this downclimb looked like from these photos. 

Can you get an idea of the angle from Neil's legs and ankles??!

So much smoke and so tantalizing to get glimpses of rows of peaks!

But thankfully the smoke was not obscuring our views of the wildflowers! 

Eventually some of the smoke started blowing out which was very exciting. 

We felt like we were finally starting to get a good look at the North Cascades!

And they were SPECTACULAR. 

Here's the view back down towards the trailhead from Cascade Pass. 

And looking back toward the pass with slightly clearer skies. 

Then we looked for our old friend the bear and he was there (although several groups of hikers had told us they never saw a bear...guess they walked right past him!) 

We were sooo dirty when we got back that we pretty much went straight to the lake to wash off from the knees down. While we were at the lake we saw a bunch of lightning flashing over the other end of the lake, so we got out and headed back to camp. 

And made some delicious dinner! 

The next morning we headed out on our next hike to Blue Lake, and about twenty minutes into the drive, we hit a road closure with no explanation. Super frustrating! So we drove back to the visitor's center since that was the closest place with reception (probably an 80 minute drive from where we were) and found that it was packed with people--apparently the lightning the previous night had started a fire about half a mile from the main road going through the park. We talked to the rangers and tried to figure out some alternate plans, but there really wasn't any good solution because of the wildfire closures. Oh gosh this became the longest day...we spent quite awhile at the visitor center trying to get enough reception to check out camping options at other parks. The kids were so patient, we were probably there for a solid hour just refreshing pages and calling Xanterra. At one point we thought we had the perfect reservations and then I asked the employee to double-check and she had booked us for the next month rather than the next day. Finally I figured out an option to go to Yellowstone or to Glacier, and we gave the kids the choice and they voted for Yellowstone. We decided to check out a few things in the park that we hadn't seen (Diablo Lake and the Ross Lake dam) and then go back to our campsite and pack up. 

But at least I finally got a picture of the park sign which is so cool!

So we drove back past our campsite to Diablo Lake, which we had already passed twice earlier in the morning on our way back from the road closure. 

Then we hiked down to the Ross Lake dam--it was murderously hot at this point and while the downhill hike was pleasant, we knew it was going to be rough going back up. And it was. 

The dam was pretty cool but I wouldn't have bothered to check it out if anything else had been open. 

Eventually we went back and packed up--we were sweating buckets by the time we finished and we were so glad to get in the car. We headed back towards the visitor center and when we got there I checked the road status just to be sure and it was open again! Argh! So we decided to backtrack and go back past our campsite, since it was about three hours shorter to go through the park. Then we were totally second-guessing ourselves and thinking maybe we shouldn't leave and just go back and set up camp again and hope we could hike the next day. 

We started driving and passed the trailheads for both of the hikes we were planning to do and both were closed, so that helped to solidify our plans, as did seeing the hillside on fire above us. But gosh it was SUCH a bummer to leave, since the Cascades are so hard to get to (kind of like Dry Tortugas!). 

We stopped at the Washington Pass overlook, which had been on our must-see list, so I'm glad we at least got to see that--there were poems everywhere which was kind of neat. 

The pass was beautiful, but kind of crazy to be able to see smoke rolling in from the Pioneer Fire burning by Stehekin and the Easy Fire that had ignited the previous night. 

And then we were out of the North Cascades. So sad! 

I kept tabs on it over the next few weeks and the closures have been pretty frequent, kind of the luck of the draw every day as to whether the main road through the park is open, along with closures to the PCT and most backcountry routes (they had lots of people getting evacuated out of the back country). As I'm writing this, the town of Stehekin is surrounded by fire but they've managed to keep it from burning the town, so I am really hoping we will be able to backpack there in future! 

And we woke up to this the next day as we were rolling into Yellowstone.