Maple Pass Loop Trail, North Cascades

Life finally caught up with me in July. Things became a little overwhelming, work started to consume my time. We had a office gal decide that Oklahoma looked like a better spot to live, so with a short notice she up and left us in our busiest season. I have truly enjoyed hiking and leaving it all behind. Maple Pass Loop Trail has always been a favorite. It is where I first starting hiking by accident and It continues to draw me back. I decided this year I wanted to see if I could squeeze it in on a weekend while the heather was still blooming, just barely made it. While the rest of my hiking buddies were enjoying the Pateros Apple Pie Jamboree I headed for the mountains. Temperature was right around 55 degrees at the parking lot. Took me a little bit to stop jumping at every sound and turning around looking for people, not used to hiking on my own. At first I thought I would bust a move and make the loop in good time, but my lovely heels that have been giving me fits since April started forming blisters again. So I took my sweet time and made plenty of stops and admired the view and all the flowers. There was still lots of snow on top, seemed more than usual for the heat we have been having. The views were nice and clear of the mountains, lots of flowers blooming. Returned to the valley floor in Methow and the temperatures were pushing 100 degrees. I will hopefully be returning come fall to enjoy the views and color once again.

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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.....

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 t...

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