I have been slowly working through old pictures on my hard drive....trying to clear up space and complete some hiking trips that I took this last year....I came across this set of pictures I took of our drive back from the Cascade Pass Trail....The smoke from the fires around Wenatchee, Pateros's Billygoat Mountain and the Methow area were really starting to push up into the North Cascades....One of the great things about the drive through the North Cascades is it seems like at every corner and turn in the road you have views of mountains...the views from the road alone are very spectacular....makes for an enjoyable journey home even if its a long day....It's hard to explain the thrill and fascination I have with the North Cascades....each time we travel back and forth from trail head to trail head...each visit is different and beautiful...can't wait to return....I am very envious of folks that ski or even snowmobile this time of year up and down hwy 20....On our way to the Cascade Pass Trail head I noticed that there was a North Cascades National Park visitors center in the Newhalem area...so we made a detour off the road to go and explore and visit it.....I have drove by many times but apparently the scenery is too distracting to see the sign....Lots of information and a sweet little gift area....I will make sure we return to visit with my nieces and newphew when we are back in the area..... Yesterday winter decided to come visit us again....brought a little bit of new snow with it....made things nice and white again...I hear rain is possibly before the weekend...this should make road conditions all kinds of fun....
Echo Basin was our last early spring hike in the Eastern Washington area. We were planning to hike the Frenchman Coulee side that heads toward the waterfall but changed our mind due to the amount of cars parked at the trail head. So down the road just a little ways we went to hike the Echo Basin trail. Even with a early start the sun was way too bright, not hot, just bright. We hiked up the jeep trail that starts on the left hand side of the road as your facing the Columbia River. Didn't seem like a real exciting trail till we reached the sand dunes, which put us closer to the rock walls. Up and over the sand dunes and on up a goat trail to get above the walls. Without really knowing were we were going we just winged it. Lots of faint trails and trails in the sand, hard to know which was the true trail. The rock walls are huge and fascinating, the columns are even more interesting up close. We hiked until we had a view looking down into Echo Basin, and a nice look at th
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