North Cascades National Park

This last weekend, we took advantage of the blue skies and headed inland to visit North Cascades National Park.

We followed the Skagit River on our drive up to the park stopping at the overlooks and vistas.

We arrived at the Gorge Creek Overlook and walked the short distance to the lake and dam overlook.  We saw a little falls and thought that was the Gorge Creek Falls until we noticed people walking over the bridge.  We went over there and saw a much bigger falls.  This was it!

We continued our drive to Diablo Lake.  I had seen pictures of it on a postcard and wanted to see if it really looked that way.  It did not disappoint us.  It is absolutely gorgeous!  It's one of those surreal moments that you can't believe you are seeing something this beautiful.

According to Wikipedia, "The unique, intense turquoise hue of the lake's water is attributed to the surrounding glaciers that grind rocks into a fine powder that is carried into the lake through creeks.  That fine powder stays suspended in the lake, giving the water its brilliant color."

We continued on to the Ross Lake Overlook and then decided to head back to La Conner.

Before we left the park, we drove down to the Diablo Dam which was completed in 1930.

The next day, we took the Mt. Baker Highway to see if we would be able to view the third highest mountain in the state of Washington.

We stopped at a trail along the highway and took a short hike along the Horseshoe Bend Trail.

We took the road leading down to the Nooksack Falls.  It was a short walk to view the waterfall dropping 88 feet down into a deep rocky river canyon.

We continued down the highway stopping along the way to admire the mountain views.

Mirror Lake was our next destination and  we stopped to take a walk around the lake.  People were picking blueberries in the meadows.  Mt. Shuksan is reflected in the lake creating an awesome image.

Everywhere you walked there was another picture that looked like a painting.

We made it to Mt. Baker, but unfortunately the tip was hidden by the clouds.  We went ahead and made the hike up to the viewing area admiring the scenery below.

The Mt. Baker Highway does not loop around so we had to drive back the same way we came from Bellingham.  Of course, that was much faster since we had made all the stops.  We certainly enjoyed our days in the Cascade Mountains!