North Cascades National Park - Short Hikes Day

After a long arduous hike yesterday, we were ready for a recovery day. So we had some short hikes planned for our day in North Cascades National Park. We were enjoying our camp site in the park, where we cooked breakfast on our cast iron griddle. It was cloudy, and our site was completely shaded, and our solar panels only produced eight amp hours this day.

Our first short hike of the day started right at our campground. We hiked the 1.4-mile Skagit River Trail that included meandering through old growth forest.

All those clouds meant that the trees were draped in moss, and decorated by mushrooms.

Autumn was coming early to the Cascade Mountains, as we saw shades of fall in August.

The Skagit River Trail took us right beside the turquoise waters of the Skagit River.

After that short hike, we made the short drive to the town of Newhalen. "Town" might make it sound bigger than it was, because Newhalen included only a sheriff office, one tiny inn, a visitor center, and a general store. You won't find any restaurants, any gas stations, or any grocery stores for produce--if you don't count the three shriveled potatoes for sale at the general store. We know about the potatoes because we bought two of them. By crossing the suspension bridge in town, we got an overhead view of the Skagit River. That beautiful turquoise water appears from the way the light reflects on the glacial "river flour" suspended in the water. That flour is actually ground rock that was pulverized as the massive glaciers made their way down this river valley.

As we looked down from the suspension bridge, we spied this floating contraption tied to a guy with a computer on the bridge. He was measuring the quality and speed of the Skagit River flow.

After crossing the bridge, we found ourselves on the "Trail of Cedars." This forest of old trees had never seen the axe of the lumberjack. It was the kind of walk where we spent most of our time looking up at these wise old cedars. 

Many of them have managed to survive fires for hundreds of years. Some of their centers were completely burned out, with a big enough spot for Mark to stand comfortably. They survived because all the vessels that carry the water and nutrients to the top of the tree were within the outside of the trunk that was still intact. We got another mile of exercise in another short hike on the Trail of Cedars.

Then we crossed a different suspension bridge to start the Ladder Creek Falls Trail.

We couldn't get enough of those beautiful views of the Skagit River.

The flow of that turquoise water was being harnessed by a hydro-electric power plant on the other side of the bridge. Seattle Power and Light built three dams with hydro-electric turbines between 1920 and 1950. That electricity has been used to power Seattle for over 100 years.

In the 1920s, this new-fangled electricity was a little hard to explain to the average citizen. So the owners built an extravagant garden behind the power plant. To show off the use of electricity in the 1920's, they heated the ground and grew palm trees, banana trees, and exotic tropical plants in a fancy garden. None of those plants could survive the harsh Cascade Mountain winters without lots of electric heat, and soon the wasteful use of power was discontinued. Sad remnants of the fancy garden were still evident on this short hike, but the star of the show was the waterfall coming off Ladder Creek. It's almost impossible to take a good picture of the whole waterfall, since part of it was inside the rock.

After three short hikes this morning, we made the short drive back to our camp site. We loved camping inside the national park with our little trailer! We had a nice lunch of grilled pork chops, grilled zucchini, cantaloupe, and those shriveled potatoes fried up on our griddle.

It was a hardy meal in a beautiful campground. You don't get ambience like that in any five-star restaurant!

We had plenty of daylight for another hike, so we drove east on Highway 20 to the Ross Dam Trail in the evening.  It was a downhill 1.5-mile hike through the forest.

That took us down to our second dam and second hydro-electric power plant of the day. The dam was a curved structure with a unique cement pattern that separates Diago Lake from Ross Lake.

On our right was the beginning of Ross Lake . . .

and far below us on our left was the end of Diablo Lake.

The famous Ross Resort sits on this very remote Ross Lake. There were no roads to the resort, so visitors must walk down the same trail that we just hiked, or take a boat to get to their lodging. On our way back up that 1.5-mile hike, we met people on the Pacific Northwest Trail. They were making the 1200 mile journey that stretches from Montana to the coast of Washington. We'd never heard of this trail, and we read that only around 100 people attempt this trail each year. Those hikers we met on the trail today were about 750 miles into their 1200 mile journey.

Just like many of the national parks we have visited, wildfires have rampaged through the beautiful scenery of the North Cascades. We saw burned tree scars on the side of some of the mountains.

We had read that Ladder Creek Falls were lit up at night. So at twilight we crossed that bridge for a second time this day.

We mentioned that the falls were impossible to photograph in the daylight, and the same was true at night. But the Seattle Power and Light Company uses some of the power produced here to bathe the falling water in different shades of light. The top hidden waterfall changed colors, but was bright pink when we snapped this picture.

The pink waterfall at the top of the mountain cascaded into a purple bowl that streamed down into a blue pool  . . .

that was lost into a red cavern that continued on down Ladder Creek.

The lights continue to change colors as we walked around the gardens. Do you prefer blue/green/purple bridge views . . .

or the red/purple/pink view hues?

It was dark by the time we crossed the bridge for the last time. On our rest day filled with short hikes we managed to log 6.9 miles with 1,781 feet of elevation gain. That's not a very restful day, but when we were wandering God's wonders in North Cascades National Park, we couldn't help ourselves!