North Cascades National Park

Gorgeous!

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I went backpacking there with Erin and her roommate, Kelly, from June 11-14. Since the 11th was a Thursday, the first night we had the campsite (Big Beaver boat-in camp) all to ourselves--and it was a really popular campsite, too, which is usually booked on the weekends (as it was Saturday night). For good reason; this site was amazing! We were right on a spur of Ross Lake, with mountains all around us. We cooked on the rocky beach, watching the sun sink behind the mountains. Erin and Kelly read Monkey Wrench Gang out loud (I'd never read it before, but soon I'll remedy that!) as we drank rum. Erin tried giving Kelly dreadlocks, and I braided Erin's hair (it looked really nice too, and surprisingly symmetrical). As the rum slowly coursed through my veins, I began to act more and more like Gollum, especially when the mice started scampering about. I ran all over the place chasing them; it was quite fun. When we went to bed, there was a mouse that kept trying to climb up my corner of the tent. It would get about a foot up, and then slide back down. Tried this several times before giving up. Maybe it was playing.

I woke up to the sound of a loon calling. What a perfect alarm clock! I'd never heard (nor seen) a loon before, and it had always been a goal of mine to wake up to the sound of one. Worked out well! So I crawled out of the tent (I was the first to rise, and we were all in Erin's ginormous 4 person dome tent, which we opted to take instead of the 2 backpacking tents) and was greeted to a crisp mountain morning, with the tops of the surrounding peaks veiled in clouds. I slowly walked along the beach, looking at schools of fish swim about, occasionally breaking the surface to gobble up some tasty morsel. And then I saw the loon, and in breeding plumage no less! I watched him for quite some time, then went back to the tent for my binoculars. He repeatedly dove underwater, often remaining submerged for a surprisingly long time, and then reappearing far away. Soon the osprey (whose nest was right across the lake from our camp) started fishing as well. Sights like these are enough to make me a morning person (temporarily, at least)!

After a quick dip in the cold lake, we headed out to our next destination: Thirtynine mile campsite. We ate lunch on a large boulder (~15 ft. tall?) along the Big Beaver Creek Trail. We passed several very large western redcedar, as well as a beaver pond. It was beautiful, but the mosquitoes pressed us onward. The mosquitoes overall were actually really terrible; the only negative part of the trip. They apparently liked me the best, and I probably had over 100 bites, mostly on my arms. The majority of the time I hiked in long sleeves (my body armor), despite the heat. At one point along the trail the ground was covered in rough, white cobbles. They comprised the whole forest floor! It almost looked like the ground was snow-covered. It was a strange sight, for many of the trees didn't look all that badly beaten. I wonder how long ago the rocks came down the slope?

We got the Thirtynine mile late afternoon/early evening and I decided it would be fun to climb a mountain (off trail) until I hit snow. I got tired and hungry, and was running out of water, without seeing any snow (at least on my slope). Across the valley I could see that some of the low areas on the other slopes had some spotty snow, which looked to be below the elevation that I was currently at. I guess I picked the wrong slope to climb for snow. Oh well, it was least steep. Though still a tough climb (which required scrambling over rock and talus at times). My heels started developing hot spots from trying to climb so fast, but no actual blisters. Which makes me very, very happy, since this was the first long hike that I'd gone on in my new boots! I'm very happy with those boots. Anyways, I decided to turn around after a while, and the climb down went much faster. At one point I thought I heard tanagers calling, but I couldn't locate them in the treetops. Darn, hopefully I'll get to see a Western Tanager before I go back east! By the time I got back to camp, Erin and Kelly had just finished dinner, and were debating whether to wait or not (or rather, had just decided that they weren't going to wait for me, lol). So perfect timing there. We built a fire a little while later (my primary goal was to smoke out the mosquitoes, which sort of worked).

Our itinerary put us back at Big Beaver the next night, but we decided it would be best to see if one of the other camps closer to the trailhead was available (by hiking to it, of course, lol). So we went a little further than planned that day, but this shortened our hike for Sunday morning (which was good since it was a 2 1/2 drive back to my house, and then Erin and Kelly had a 5 hour drive after that). In the afternoon we heard thunder, though the main storm stayed in a different valley. We did get sprinkled on, and the rain was welcome, as it drove the mosquitoes away for the rest of the day! It was still raining as we set up camp, but we found a dry spot under some doug fir and shore pine to cook our dinner. During dinner, the rain stopped. Everything was able to dry. The weather was perfect; rain to get rid of the mosquitoes, but stopped before it could become a nuisance!

We saw a lot of cool flora and fauna, too, including some notable herps. Two western toads (Bufo boreas) that were impressively large. I'd estimate about 5+ inches SVL. Several Pacific tree frogs (Pseudacris regilla) and several alligator lizards (Elgaria sp.), one of which I thought was a skink at the time (but after looking up the Western Skink, I realized that it was not what I saw). And coolest of all, a rubber boa (Charina bottae)!!!

And that concludes my trip summary. Now it's bed time. I can't wait to get back to this park in September (next time bug spray will be a required item!). I'm also excited to backpack Olympic NP and Banff NP!