Washington

NORTH CASCADES NATIONAL PARK

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   North Cascades National Park, Washington:

	Although it was about 10:00 pm once we finally got to Anacorte, we wanted to make some more progress, so we drove on for about 2 ½ hours into North Cascades National Park.  Luckily, the second campground in, at New Halem, wasn’t full, so we found a nice little site, pitched the tent, and crashed.  When we woke up the next morning we were very pleasantly surprised.  Neither of us had heard much about this park, but it was on the way to Glacier NP, so we decided to give it a try.  The park is essentially a collection of huge old growth trees, 300 separate glaciers, knife edge peaks, and rivers which are almost teal in color.  The water was so tempting that we almost made the mistake of jumping in until a ranger luckily told us it was 40 degrees, at most (damn that glacier run-off).

	As we drove east, we stopped at the Thunder Knob Hill trailhead.  This is a great climb, or run if that’s your thing.  It goes up about 400 feet in elevation in about 2 miles with several view points of the park’s peaks and rivers below.  At the top, the payoff is huge with a frontal view of the entire North Cascades, which still have some snow pack, and Diablo Lake below, with the aforementioned almost bright green colored water.  Definitely one of the national park system’s hidden treasures (maybe that is why it is featured on this year’s Golden Eagle National Park Pass).

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