Enloe Dam-Simiklameen River

While we were up in the area hiking Whistler Canyon Trail, near Oroville we decided to take a side trip and visit the Enloe Dam....WARNING.....The road down to Enloe Dam requires a high clearance vehicle....we did make it in a Chevy Equinox....but I would not recommend it...SCARY....and hard on the nerves....Without good directions and a confusing map we got turned around in Oroville...figured our our location and headed towards the Simiklameen River....Beautiful river....green in color and winds its way through the valley....Enloe Dam Road is well marked with a sign on the right...road on the left...the first section is not terrible....the bottom section I would not do again in anything but a 4x4 rig.... explored the trail that follows the river down past the dam towards the power house.....very nice place to visit...it is really to bad the road is in such terrible shape....I would imagine that it gets its fair share of people that stop and sight see....from there we continued up the road after a nerve shattering drive back up from the dam....followed the Simiklameen River around and through the old town of Nighthawk....lovely country....the hills show signs of mining from years past....and down around into Loomis then back out on to the main highway......in a couple of weeks the hills will be really green and most likely covered with sunflowers.....watch out for deer....they make sudden road crossings....crazy animals...the fields are full of them....Wont be long and more trails will be open and ready to hike....

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North Cascades Hwy 20, Snowshoeing

Since we don't take snowshoeing very serious and it's just another way to get out in the great outdoors and have some fun, we snowshoe highway 20 from the parking area up the pass quiet often. It is a busy snowmobile area, but if you just be aware of whats going on around you, it is safe. There is so much room to have fun, snow covered slopes, snowshoe up the road, or venture off the road. It is a gradual climb up the road, we never get very far before we run out of gas and are ready to head back down. I would love to some day take a snowmobile to the top of the pass...and snowshoe....I keep dreaming. This is a easy location to just get out, stretch your legs and enjoy the fresh winter air. I have always been a little bit apprehensive about snowshoeing where there is snowmobile activities, but so far we have met only super polite folks and very respectful to keep their distance of folks snowshoeing.

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.....

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...

Lost In The Right Direction

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