... I would still plant my apple tree: North Cascades

Thursday, September 10, 2015

North Cascades

North Cascades was, both literally and figuratively, the wildest place we visited. It was quiet, peaceful, magnificent and mind blowing all at the same time.

We had another little mechanical glitch here - brake wires to the trailer had come disconnected while enroute and had shredded. But, thanks to the wonderful folks at the Les Schwab in (kind of like Jiffy Lube on the East Coast) we were taken care of and good to go. Of course, we discovered the brake issue after having the trailer fully set up, and it was a Friday afternoon. But, the owner of the shop was originally from Virginia so he didn't charge Ed anything. Thank goodness for small kindnesses and small miracles.

One of our favorite parts of this leg of the trip was that we got to reconnect with an old camp friend and meet her new partner. We weren't able to connect with her when we were in Seattle, so we were thrilled when she was able to join us for the day while we were in the Cascades.

3 things I loved about North Cascades: the color of the water, the way the campground was spread out and so private, the view of the mountains

2 things that made me nervous: The wildness of the park made it a place you wanted to keep your kids close. A child was missing overnight the first night we were there and I woke up in a panic for days after thinking about how I would feel. Fortunately, all was well and she was found perfectly unharmed in the morning. The wildness of the Skagit (say it: Ska (short a) - jit (short i)) was also terrifying. It was so very, very fast. You could fall in, be sucked under and be gone in minutes and no one would ever know what happened to you.

1 thing I have to do in the future: come back and spend time in the back country. This area is close to Holden Village. Next time, I want to come back and spend the whole summer. I'll let the peacefulness soak into my bones - I think I'll stay far away from that river though.

Still cold - but on the other side of the rain shadow - so it was dry. In fact, we drove through several places that had been badly burned a few days before. This is a terrible area for wild fires.