North Cascades July 8-9

We awoke and soon set off from Douglas Fir Campground. Despite being so close to the main road it ended up being peaceful, the only noise being the fast-moving riffles of the North Fork Nooksack River a stone's roll beyond our campsite. As we were about to leave, a chubby white rabbit casually hopped into our campsite, seemingly a rogue pet without a care and the whole world to eat. After convincing Heather to let it be we drove on up the road to Artist's Point at the roadend, which had only just opened a week before. Snow, snow everywhere, this parking lot was at 5000' elevation but felt like it could have been three times that. From this ridge vantage we had views of Mt Baker to the southwest, craggy Mt Shuksan to the east, and peaks on the Canadian border only 10 miles to the north. While Heather enjoyed the sun and views in the parking lot, I put on my yaktrax and jaunted along to Huntoon Point for more great views of icy mountain faces. An oddity on the return was a women in seafoam green taking photos of her cat Olaf in matching ski googles. We stopped to walk the boardwalk around Picture Lake which had picture-perfect views of Mt Shuksan (frontispiece). We got stuck behind a slow road line painting truck that needlessly killed about a half hour before we were allowed to continue on. We stopped briefly at Nooksack Falls.

Weighing options and with bad weather on its way tomorrow, we settled on a half-hearted jaunt to the visitor center and along the main highway through North Cascades National Park. Warm sun allowed us to dry all our gear at the visitor center before continuing on. We made brief stops at Ladder Creek, the Gorge Dam, and Lake Diablo before turning around. The sights all paled in comparison to Artist's Point and it was clear we would have to put in many miles to get some classic North Cascade views, which with rain on the way we weren't ready to invest in. Like Rainier, it would have to be another time.

In the mid-afternoon we drove south several hours to meet up with my friend Steph and kid for square pizza in Portland (great to catch up!) before driving to Mt Hood to disperse camp south of Trillium Lake. We had a few mosquitoes here but plenty of solitude. The rain did not hit us until after we had settled in for the night.