An hour north of Seattle, and very close to the Canadian border, lies a wonderful wilderness called North Cascades National Park. It is where the Cascade Mountains merge with the Canadian Coastal Range and under all this lies earthquake faults, and pillars of magma which do not break the surface (at this time) and within it’s boundaries lies the dormant volcano, Mt. Baker.
The mountains here appear to roll over each other, with very steep slopes that are covered with majestic green trees. There are glaciers, lakes, rivers and trails galore, and the water is that beautiful turquoise color created by the glaciers crushing out the minerals in the rocks.
The vistas from the North Cascades Highway 20 are beautiful. This is a place where I’d like to camp for a week to hike its many trails. And boy does it rain here. For both of our days here, it rained and poured, with a few precious but scattered times of clouds without rain.
We saw people fishing, kayaking, and hiking. This is a beautiful spot in God’s creation. We saw bedrock from 500 million years ago push up on a cliff over the evolution of time. We saw evidence of earthquake faults shifting the land over the eons of time.
Amidst this beauty is also sadness. The glaciers have been melting fast for 50 years and are now about half the size they were just 50 years ago. While this area used to have a lot of grizzly bears, there have only been two sightings in the past decade, and experts now believe there are less than 20, and probably only a few remaining. We were heartened to learn about extensive measures now in place to restore the grizzly bear population.
We loved North Cascades National Park and hope to return in the future. Here is a picture of Washington Pass.
Wow, amazing colors and mountains! Thanks for the descriptive comments! I have to get up there .