Moving Up in the World

Yesterday we left Yakima and headed north to our final stop in central Washington before venturing to British Columbia for a month. We have been enjoying the Cascade Mountains immensely and were looking forward to discovering North Cascades National Park and the old western town of Winthrop. Since we are only a couple of days from being out of the Cascade Range I thought I’d share some fun and interesting facts. The Cascades are part of the Pacific Oceans Ring of Fire. All of the eruptions in the contiguous United States in the last 200 years have been from volcanoes in the Cascade Range. There are 23 peaks over 9,000 feet.
We arrived at our KOA campground in Winthrop and once again had to duck sprinklers to get into our spot. This time, my timely duck helped me avoid Rain Bird in the face like Scott got in Yakima. We got settled and decided to wander into town to check out the Golf Course and the Brewery. The town in very western in décor with a primary industry surrounding tourism.

Apparently there are only 450 full time residents. We enjoyed an excellent beer right by the river…both very cooling in nature since it is still in the mid 80’s here. Back at camp we had chicken stir-fry for dinner and enjoyed our satellite and internet.
This morning we woke up early and decided to head off to explore the North Cascades National Park and Scenic Byway. Like Mount Hood there wasn’t a lot of information available on line so we thought we would wing it. The drive was beautiful with amazing scenery around every corner. The morning was clear so the photographer in me was a bit disappointed. There were clouds yesterday.

Not to worry….by the time we turned around to head back the clouds were forming nicely and allowed a redo on some of the AM photos. One of the most amazing things that we saw on the drive was the amazing view of Diablo Lake. The unique, intense turquoise hue of the lake's water is attributed to the surrounding glaciers that grind rocks into a fine powder that is carried into the lake through creeks. Interestingly the other lakes in the area were not the same incredible color.

All in all another great day. Wild flowers, waterfalls and jagged snow capped peaks…it just doesn’t get any better.