Next Stop: North Cascades National Park

On the road again! Dave found a way for us to save several hours of driving and avoid the Seattle and Tacoma congested areas—take a ferry! We boarded the ferry with our truck pulling Mini-T and just 35 minutes later we had crossed Puget Sound and arrived in the small town of Coupeville, WA. We only had a 2 ½ hour drive to our Newhalem Campground, nestled in North Cascades National Park. It was a treat to go on a “cruise,” as short as it was. Our truck & Mini-T had a front row view of the crossing, although Dave, Murphy and I headed for the upper decks to take in the view.

We had 3 full days to explore North Cascades. Chad (ChatGPT) laid out an awesome, dog-friendly itinerary, with just one problem. It was hot! We were under an “Extreme Heat Advisory.” Although our Florida friends would just scoff at our temps (low 90’s), we do not turn on the A/C as we were dry camping (no electricity). The A/C would eat up our battery power in no time. And, as we were surrounded by a lush forest, there was no sun to charge our batteries via the solar panels. Yes, we do have a generator which we use as a last resort. Who wants to hear a generating running in a beautiful forest. It drowns out the beautiful bird songs.

Interestingly, North Cascades National Park is the second least visited national park in the U.S. I don’t understand why. It has towering, rugged, steep mountain peaks, lush forests, glaciers, glacier-made lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and tons of hiking trails with various lengths and difficulties for all skill levels. The low number of annual visitors ranks amongst the 5 national parks in Alaska that you must charter a plane or take a boat to reach. This park is easily accessible along Hwy 20, just a few hours northeast of Seattle. It’s a mystery.

One of our first morning hikes took us on a river loop, following the Skagit river. It is born from snowfields and glaciers high in the Cascade Mountains and is tinted green from glacier ground “rock flour.” There are whitewater rafting opportunities along the river. We watched several rafts take off across the river from us. The rapids didn’t look too intense, in fact, they are rated for beginners. We did hear some screaming from a few rafts as they floated down the river and then one rafter was bounced by the whitewater and fell in! The guide quickly got her back in the raft. Murphy enjoyed some wading and stick retrieval in a shallower section.

Again, we heard stories of how rapidly the climate is changing, just over the last several decades. One of the most dramatic changes seen in this region is the substantial shrinking of the North Cascades range glaciers. Less ice and snow in the winter means less water. Rivers, lakes, forests, and wildlife depend on snow and glacial melt as do people. What happens when the glaciers are gone?

There were so many hikes to choose from and all were dog friendly! Thank you, North Cascades National Park! Our favorite was a hike from the bottom of beautiful Diablo Lake up to an overlook of the lake. Here are a few pictures from our hikes. Oh and on each hike, whenever we turned around on an out and back hike, Murphy would lag behind, pouting. Hikes with loops are much better since he doesn’t realize we are heading back!

Along the 150-mile-long Skagit River, three dams were built, the Gorge, Diablo, and Ross, to generate hydroelectric power. The dams were built further upstream of where salmon run to spawn. The salmon are a critical food source for the endangered resident killer whales. We stopped by the Gorge powerhouse, which had created a nice trail to showcase the nearby ladder waterfall, which is right past Goode Lake, created from the dams.