North Cascades of Washington

This month we took our first real vacation since the beginning of the pandemic, and spent a week exploring the National Parks in Washington state. We've both been to Seattle before, but had never explored outside of the city. With three national parks and ecosystems ranging from desert to coastal rainforest, Washington is a great place for a roadtrip focusing on hiking and outdoor activities.

We started with one evening in Seattle. First we visited with David's video gaming friend Sherrod at a bar near the airport. Then we met up with our friends Leslie and Lauren. We walked around the Capitol Hill neighborhood and had dinner at Taku, a Japanese fried chicken place. We were pretty exhausted with the three hour time change, so we headed back to our friend's apartment and crashed. We do need to get back to Seattle sometime to spend more time in the city!

Flying over Washington, with the mountains poking above the clouds.

We could also see the wildfires from our flight - these would impact our trip route due to closed roads.

We also had a fantastic view of downtown Seattle just before landing.

David & Sherrod - the pandemic encouraged us to make friends in new ways - this one via Final Fantasy XIV online. It's nice to meet in person!

The Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

On our first full day, we set out early for the area near of North Cascades National Park, in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. We did the Chain Lakes Trail, a 6.5 mile loop trail that goes around Table Mountain with views of Mt. Baker, Mt. Shuksan, and several alpine lakes. Several parts of the trail were still covered in snow, even in late July. This was a great hike with good views, and wasn't crowded. There were a few uphill sections with 1,800 feet of altitude gain, but it wasn't too bad. 

After the hike we had a late lunch at Chair 9, and relaxed at our AirBnB in Glacier. Overall, staying near the Mt Baker trails are a bit tricky and the town of Glacier seriously had like 2 restaurants and some shoddy AirBnBs so we probably wouldn't recommend staying here. That said, this was one of the best hikes of the entire trip and the wilderness area up here is really stunning!

Great weather for a hike!

Still lots of snowy areas.

The perfect kind of weather...cold enough for snow & but warm enough for a T-shirt!

David on a part of the trail cutting across a steep incline.

We love hikes like this!

Icy lakes are the prettiest lakes.

Iceberg Lake.

When the clouds parted we had direct views of Mt. Baker.

A few areas had snow/ice banks that had melted from below.

After hiking - giant pizza time!

The next day we backtracked and drove to the south side of North Cascades National Park, in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area. North Cascades is a bit odd because it's difficult to actually get into the national park unless you're doing backcountry camping. Most of the trails are in the surrounding national forests and recreation areas. But we saw the entrance sign and the visitor's center (which was mostly closed due to COVID), so we're counting it. 😂

We decided to do a relatively short trail, since we had an unexpectedly long drive ahead of us. Our original plan was to continue east on Highway 20, staying in Winthrop. However, the forest fires resulted in the closure of Highway 20, the only east-west road in this part of the state. Instead of a one hour drive east, we would have to backtrack and head quite a ways south before turning back east again. So we did some time management and did a hike on the Thunder Knob trail, a relatively easy hike that was just a bit over 3 miles round trip. It still had some great views of Diablo Lake and the nearby mountains. After leaving we had a quick lunch at a quirky Korean/American restaurant named Mondo in Marblemount, before continuing on the 4 hour drive to Leavenworth. 

One of the best looking national park signs.

Awesome views from the Thunder Knob trail.

Views over Diablo Lake.

Korean pork and hamburgers were both on the menu at Mondo!

Leavenworth wasn't in our original plan for this trip, and resulted in a lot of extra driving, but we're glad we visited! We arrived in the afternoon, and walked around a bit before having dinner. It's a faux-Bavarian town, like a larger version of Helen, Georgia. Leavenworth is also nicer than most American-made Bavarian towns. A common refrain was "oh, this is nicer than our Helen." The downtown area was closed to motor vehicles, which created a nice pedestrian experience. We weren't sure if this was a temporary thing due to COVID or for the tourist season, but it was great and they should make it permanent. We unfortunately were visiting during a heatwave, and it was really hot, but luckily it cooled off as the sun set. We had some beer, walked around the waterfront park, and then had dinner at Stein before heading back to the hotel (which was very nice and featured a really beautiful breakfast area on the top floor).

Welcome to faux-Bavaria, y'all!

All the people hanging out on the shady side of the street - it was hot!

A maypole and Bavarian-styled building.

Lots of cute shops and restaurants.

There are three breweries in town - we had a flight at Icicle Brewing.

Sampler time!

Hungarian poutine in the USA. Nothing here makes sense, but it was great!

The Wenatchee river goes right through town.

Our hotel, the Enzian Inn, was great. Highly recommended.

The European-style breakfast room in our hotel.

Paul hanging out our Juliet balcony. Unfortunately, the courtyard was under construction.

Our first few days were a great start to our Washington road trip. We saw friends, both old and new, dashed through a bit of Seattle, explored the snowy North Cascades, and dined on the Washington-Bavarian Riviera. The next part of our trip would be quite different - heading into the grasslands and deserts of eastern Washington!