On the Trail Again

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This morning it was cool and a little cloudy, but after all this is Washington State where it is forever rainy and grey - or at least that is how Carl imagined it!... Seriously, we were hoping that it wouldn’t rain as we were looking forward to some hiking!...

Statistics

Starting Destination: Concrete, Washington
Ending Destination: Concrete, Washington
Ending Destination GPS: N: 43° 40.980’ W: 114° 21.953’ Elev: 5892’
Miles Driven: 124.9
Miles Hiked: 9.4
Vertical Feet Climbed: approx. 2,500
Bears Encountered: Read on and find out!

Finding Somewhere to Hike

Yesterday when we drove through from the “dry” side to the “wet” side of the mountains we weren’t actually in the North Cascades National Park - the road travels through the Ross Lake National Recreation Area. So this morning we thought we had better investigate how/if we could get to the “Park” to do some hiking. We retraced our steps to Newhalen and investigated the visitors’ center, where we found not only an excellent recommendation for a hike, but the warning sign left - see the brown blob alert section for an update as to whether we encountered the Thief Raven!! The Ranger at the visitors’ center recommended the Cascade Pass Trail almost a soon as we got “we are looking for a hike 4-6 hours of moderate to strenuous difficulty!” To get to the trail-head we needed to back track to Marblemount, cross the river and drive about 22 miles - sounds easy! ‘Till you find out that the county speed limit is 35 mph unless otherwise posted (it wasn’t posted) and that over half of the road was gravel! However, at least we were on the correct road - we stopped about 1/3 of the way up to take pictures at a pull-out and a car pulled in behind us… “Is this the correct road to “Osoyoos?” We knew it wasn’t, but didn’t have any clue where Osoyoos was, except that the lady who asked said it was in Canada! We didn’t have our detailed map and were a bit clueless until the driver said that they needed to go to Winthrop first - they were definitely on the wrong road! We set them straight and Maria thought about them later when we got to the one lane dirt road… In some sections it was so steep and windy that the road was actually paved to stop the erosion.

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The Cascade Pass Trail

So after about 1 hour’s drive we were finally at the trail-head, it was 11:30 and we debated about eating lunch before leaving - we decided against it, looking forward to having a “table with a view!’ Not that the view we had wasn’t bad, we just hoped to find a better one… We were not disappointed - the initial part of the trail wound backwards-and-forwards up the side of the mountain, there was not much of a view as we were beneath the tree-line and some of the trees were huge, some of the leaves on the plants were also huge.
About two miles in the trail straightened out and it was a gradual uphill hike to the “finish,” we walked through the pass and looked over into the next valley - it was an incredible sight… A lot of the alpine plants were changing color—there were greens, reds, oranges, yellows and even an unknown purple berry (wild blueberry?); the white of the glaciers and the blue of the sky and the lake - oops, we haven’t got there yet! There was a nice seating area at the pass, but it was a little windy, so we proceeded along one of the trails a little way to find somewhere “in the sun and out of the wind” to quote Carl. We actually didn’t get off the trail as these areas were marked “closed for plant rehabilitation.” We were nearly through with lunch when this party of 4 guy’s who we had earlier passed on the trail stopped and said that we were missing the really good view - it was just “a little further, but up!” It was definitely up, probably about 1000 feet - but the view was spectacular, you could look down into Desolation Lake - the lake was the blue color of a glacial lake and even had an island… We theorized that at one time two glaciers had fed the lake—one depositing the moraine that dammed up the valley to make the lake and the other making the Island!! By this time our plan “get back from the hike in time to eat Ice Cream at the stand in Marblemount” was in jeopardy - but the adventure was just beginning!!

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Brown Blob Alert

We were standing at the top of the ridge, Carl was taking a GPS reading so we would have the elevation and Maria was looking around… When she saw these 2 brown furry ears - her first thought was “someone has brought a horse up here,” perhaps it was one of the trail maintenance crew we had seen earlier? But no, Carl (when he found it) confirmed it was a black bear… It was at this time that Maria remembered that she had asked Carl whether he wanted her to carry his bigger camera lens; no, Carl thought that all we would see on the trip were squirrels, chipmunks and perhaps a few birds… So, yes, the brown blob in the picture left is actually a bear!! The bear ambled across the slope (about 30 or 40 feet from where we were standing) looking for food - he knew we were there, but continued across the slope; until suddenly he stopped, dead still, waiting… Two of the guys who had told us about the trail were coming up and the bear had seen them - he spooked and ambled off stage right and hid under the bushes for a while before disappearing! In the other ‘brown blob’ encounter of the day Carl saw for the first time a group of either Roosevelt or Thule Elk in a field on a wildlife preserve just outside of Concrete, it was getting dark - but he still had time to look for the difference between these and the Rocky Mountain Elk… Can you tell?
P.s. Maria can’t, but then again are you really surprised?!
P.p.s We never encountered the Raven…

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Meanwhile, finishing the day…

Back where we left off… When the two guys who spooked the bear reached the crest we start chatting with one of them - it turns out he was a retired Kodak employee who was working as an architectural Photographer, he loaned Carl one of his “really expensive” lenses to try. With the lens Carl was able to take a cool photo of the local color (far left). By this stage we were ready for ice cream so we headed on down the mountain, and that last part was just as hard as we expected - but that meant that the part below the pass was easier… Easier enough for us to count the switchbacks - Maria estimated 20, Carl 40 - but neither was correct! Back at the truck we had 65 minutes to get the ice-cream stand… We made it, just under the wire - for some pretty darn good ice-cream! After the Elk adventure we went back to the cabin where we cooked dinner, twice - unfortunately, Carl was not paying enough attention when draining the pasta and dumped it all into the fire pit… Oh well, must have been the ice-cream, we should have saved it for desert!

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Carl’s Travel Trivia

Yesterday’s Answer: (1) 6,809 MW and (2) 11,975,521 cubic yards (ok, 12 million)
Today’s Question: How many switch backs in the first 2 miles of the Cascade Pass Trail?

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