North Cascades National Park
Victoria Beyer
SEVEN WEEKS ACROSS AMERICA
Diablo Lake
Everyone always asks me which National Park I want to go back to. I’d have to say North Cascades in Washington is at the top of that list. We only stayed a couple of nights and I feel like we just barely scratched the surface of what this park has to offer. We hiked from the campground to the small town of Newhalem, where we had a look around. It’s a company town, owned by Seattle City Light where employees of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project live and work. The park encourages you to visit the Gorge Powerhouse, where you can actually go inside and see how it works. Seattle City Light actually has been promoting the area to visitors since the lakes were created nearly a hundred years ago. The waters of Gorge Lake, Diablo Lake and Ross Lake are a stunning turquoise color that really must be seen to be believed. You can get a good look at them from Hwy 20.
Near the hydroelectric plant in Newhalem is this cool suspension bridge (with my even cooler little fox pictured). After crossing it you can walk up to Ladder Falls, which is lit at night with colored lights. Our bedtimes were a little too early for that, so we walked around it in the middle of the day. The Ladder Falls trail is surrounded by gardens that were clearly once very grand but could use a little more love these days. But it was just the right length of excursion for our family, given the heat we encountered. When my daughter is a little bigger I’d love to return to North Cascades and hike up into the mountains. There are so many trails here that look amazing.