Skip to main content

Cascade Pass & Sahale Arm Trail, North Cascades National Park


Life has been interesting so far this summer. Our summer was filled with lots of smoke this year, once again. I drove to work for a few weeks with a back seat full of things I decided I was not leaving behind this time. Just in case the fire decided to jump over the ridge of Billygoat mountain and take Pateros out again. Sad to say but a few of those items are still riding around in the backseat, due to laziness. I have been out hiking, July was mostly a good month, August we struggled to get anywhere due to smoke, closed trails, roads and just not enough heart to leave home to far. My brand new home office-studio has basically sat empty, my computer has gotten lonely and collected dust. Around the first of July our plans to overnight into the Pasayten were canceled due to...to busy and guess what, the woods caught on fire. One wonderful day in July my camera decided to take a dive out of my truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot....apparently cameras and pavement do mix very well. So way to many weeks later, Nikon was able to fix it and return it to me. Good thing because I was afraid I would have to sell the house to buy a new one. So after sitting under a cloud of smoke for weeks on end, we have been having beautiful sky's the last few weekends. Managed to get two weekends of hiking squeezed in. I don't have any recent pictures to show yet....maybe come Christmas. But the future is looking good, sand, sun, beautiful water is just around the corner....VACATION. Once again the pictures are from last year....embarrassed to say that....kinda. But real life for me. I keep saying someday! I have hiked Cascade Pass several times over the last couple of years, never a disappointment. It takes some motivation to get get up early and hit the road, but always worth it. The last little climb from the pass up to reach the Sahale Arm is always a challenge for me...getting old and I might have indulged in a few extra mocha's....pastry's....while trudging thru the ashes of my life. Moving forward one day at a time.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Places We Can Go

Life goes on, things change, storms of life come and go.  One thing that always remains the same is the feeling and quiet peace I feel from being in the mountains.  This was a spur of the moment overnight trip.  It was so needed and such a beautiful time.  Left the house around 2:30 PM, traffic was so slow heading up Hwy 20, lots of folks heading out of Mazama.  Arrived at the trail head a few minutes before 4 PM, and we were off down the trail in a few minutes.  Three quarters of a mile down the trail a bee or some kind of flying ant decided to bite my nieces eye lid, talk about hysteria for a moment.   I was pretty sure our trip was over, but we were able to move on with a very cold creek soaked multipurpose face mask.  The sun was sinking fast and the wind was howling by the time we reached the top.  Made some quick decisions on the best place to park the tents, and we set up camp.  It was truly an incredible evening, hiked aroun...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yellow Jacket Sno-Park.......................

December 29th, 2012 came along with some beautiful weather in the Mazama area....broken blue skys and a nice 21 degrees.....with my little brother and his wife up visiting through the holiday season we ventured out to play in the snow.....We originally headed up to snowshoe the Cedar Creek trail....but Hwy 20 wasn't plowed past the first sign at the bottom.....and when we came across the Early Winters bridge we could see trucks and cars parked on both sides of the road....somewhere between 25-40 rigs.....lots of snowmobile trailers.....we decided that we needed to locate another snowshoeing spot with a little less traffic since my brother wanted to do a little snowboarding if possible......so we headed to Yellow Jacket Sno-Park....Large parking area with just a few vehicles parked....we strapped on our gear and headed up the trail....nice easy hike up a groomed snowmobile track....lots of places to step off the trail and explore...we pretty much stuck to the trail on the way up.....
Post a Comment
Read more

Not all trails are created equal

 Beautiful big views, abundance of flowers, snow capped mountains all around and singing birds.  I love this hike when the flowers are blooming. This is a hike you can do multiple times in the spring and there is always new flowers blooming.  The mountain views are incredible, a nice view of the valley floor looking up towards Mazama and back down towards Twisp.  So much to see, hear and enjoy.  This is the perfect hike for an evening adventure, not to long, a fairly easy hike, the birds are very active and keep you company as you make the loop.  These pictures are only from one side of the loop, I ran out of good light to complete it since I stopped for every flower along the way.  When the balsam root is blooming it is a beautiful display of golden flowers, intermixed with lupine and larkspur.  I have hiked this trail many times over the years and am always amazed by natures incredible beauty. ...
Post a Comment
Read more