Abbey's Road

Most everyone who told me about Lake Louise said it’s a beautiful place, despite the throngs of tourists. The village is nothing more than a few hotels, restaurants, gas stations and stores to cater to the tourists. The lake itself, however, is quite beautiful. The Chateau Fairmount Lake Louise is a very famous hotel that sits on the shoreline. From the lakeside it looks quite imposing, but once you climb high above the lake on one of the many trails in the area, it diminishes in stature a bit. I heard one guy saying that a standard room there goes for $800/nt. That’s enough to pay for a few months of camping for me. I think it would probably be up to my brother, Jim, and his wife, Carol’s standards, though I don’t think Jim would be able to get a room comp’ed there like he usually tries to do. Abbey got to check the place out from the shoreline trail. Having recovered from the previous two traumatic days of high winds and thunderstorms she was ready to go. She walked me around for about an hour and a half before I brought her back to the RV and struck out on some of the more strenuous trails without her. The views from high above the lake were pretty incredible. The canoes on Lake Louise looked like little more than dots on the water. I was amazed at how many people actually made the climb up to the Lake Agnes Teahouse. It’s only a couple of miles but you go up about 1300 ft. in elevation. I was wondering if the staff has to hike up everyday because there certainly was no road. I passed on the tea because I didn’t really want a pot by myself and the service didn’t look speedy. I guess they figure everyone is pretty tired and wants a long rest anyways. After leaving the teahouse I was in for a steep climb up to a place called Big Beehive, having done Little Beehive on the way up to Lake Agnes. Still not sufficiently satisfied with all these great views I decided to do the full loop and go to the Plain of the 6 Glaciers. I was thinking that it couldn’t be much higher than I already was, but I found out that you have to go down to pick up the trail and then you go back up. Needless to say I was pretty tired when I got to the plain. It was pretty cool though, but I was a bit disappointed that no chunks broke off the glacier while I was there. A large piece broke off about an hour before I got there. Luckily, the way back to the beginning was all downhill ‘cause I was pretty beat.

There was another area around Lake Louise that I wanted to hike but you had to be in a group of 6 due to all the grizzly activity in the area. The buffalo berries are in season and it is one of their favorite foods so they are out in full force. Some areas have even been closed to hikers because of the bears, but there are still plenty of hikes to do. I was going to go to the trail head early the next morning to try and hook up with a group, but decided I was too tired and needed a light day. The weather was as nice as it had been the day before. Ever since the thunderstorms on Wednesday things had really improved and the smoke had pretty much cleared out. So Abbey and I did a hike about 3 miles into Boom Lake. I was hoping she could swim while I ate lunch, but the rocky shore wasn’t really conducive to it. Instead she went hunting for things in the woods and unfortunately found a frog that I didn’t notice until it was too late. It was still alive when I pulled her back, but I don’t think it lasted too long after that. The rest of the day we hung out in Banff before going to another campground. I had registered earlier in the day and left a chair in my spot so people wouldn’t think it was empty. I was pretty ticked when we got back and found my chair gone. The next night we got back fairly late and found that they had taken my ticket stub off the post as well. I was happy to move on from that campground, especially since the train seemed to run right through it several times a day.

On Saturday I tried to take Abbey for a hike early so I could go up to a place called Sunshine Meadows by bus later in the morning. There’s a place called Johnston Canyon not far from the campground that has a couple of nice waterfalls. We got there early before the crowds, but things didn’t go too well. They had these concrete and steel catwalks built into the canyon walls in places where there wasn’t enough room for a trail. I was amazed they went through that much trouble to put a trail up the canyon. If I had remembered my camera I could’ve shown you pictures. Well, Abbey wasn’t too fond of these catwalks, especially when they made noises, but I managed to get her most of the way to the upper falls without too much coaxing. As the falls got louder and the trail got more crowded, though, she got more nervous. It took a while to get her all the way back and I had to make sure that I didn’t look too mad or frustrated in front of all the other people. Let’s just say it wasn’t a fun walk. Sunshine Meadows turned out a bit better. You drive to the parking lot of Sunshine Village ski resort and they take you up on a shuttle bus to the upper lodge. I remember once when Mary Beth and I first went to Germany we went to hike Alpspitz, the second highest mountain in Germany. We decided to save a few bucks and hike up instead of taking the gondola. Well, by the time we got to the top of the gondola run I was so tired I didn’t even have enough energy to go get a beer at the lodge. Luckily, Mary Beth still did so got the beers while I laid down on one of the conveniently placed lounge chairs. That beer was probably one of the best beers I ever tasted, second only to the ice cold free beer at the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam. The worst part was some of the best hiking started from the top gondola station, but we were way too tired to do anymore. Ever since then I’m always willing to spend the money to take a bus, gondola or whatever to get up to where the good hiking starts. The views from the trails around Sunshine Meadows were nice, but I don’t know if I would do it again unless the wildflowers were in bloom. We were a few weeks too late. And the $5 bottle of beer just didn’t measure up to that one on top of Alpspitz. At least I wasn’t as tired. Nonetheless I decided to treat myself to dinner at a Mexican place in Banff. The food was actually pretty good and the beer tasted pretty good too. I sat at the bar like I usually try to do and met a few of the locals so it was an interesting night.

On Sunday, I was pretty tired and wasn’t sure how Abbey would be after my frustration of the previous morning. I found a nice easy walk in Banff that we could do and figured that might work for her. She was fine except it turned out to be popular with horses so I had to try to keep her from eating all the horse dung. It’s not easy finding a trail that works for both of us any more. After eating lunch and working on the computer some she was getting restless so I decided to give it one more shot. We went to Lake Minnewanka (when we lived in Woodstock, Lake Minnewaska was one of our favorite places to hike) where Abbey got to swim for a while. To my surprise she perked right up and we went for a fairly long hike along the lake shore and then up a canyon. It turned out to be a beautiful hike. The stream in the canyon was incredibly clear and the crowds thinned out after a while. She seemed pretty satisfied at the end of the hike and I was pretty happy too.

The next morning Abbey was still tired from the day before so I hiked up to Bourgeau Lake by myself. The lake was pretty high up above the trailhead but it didn’t take as long as I expected. The winds had changed though, and the smoky skies were back. You could still see everything but it was very hazy and not worth taking any pictures. After having lunch at the lake, it was still kind of early so I decided to keep going up to Harvey Pass. It was quite a climb, but the exercise felt good. By the time I got back Abbey had regained her energy so we stopped at a lake on the way to the campground. She stayed in the water until she was shivering, came out long enough to dry off a little and went back in. After an hour she finally had enough so we left.

Today, Tuesday, is laundry day. Laundry in Canada is quite a bit more expensive - $3 a load. Many things are more expensive here – food, gas, laundry, beer. I wasn’t expecting so much of a difference though it could be that I’m in very touristy places. Maybe the rest of Canada isn’t so bad. The exchange rate isn’t what it used to be either – US$1 buys you about C$1.10 or so depending on where you exchange. I just use my ATM and credit card. They seem to be best.

Well I woke up this morning to thunderstorms so I know it won’t be a good day for Abbey. It has been raining all morning and looks like it will most of the day. So we’re saying goodbye to Banff and heading south into an area called Kananaskis Country. There are several provincial parks there and it is still in the Rockies. I’m hoping the weather will clear up soon and we can enjoy a little bit more of the mountains before leaving Canada and crossing back into the States in Montana.

Posted by Ed at 12:21 PM | Permalink

After getting everything done for my land purchase Friday morning, we drove up the Icefield Parkway. It’s about 230km with views of mountains, lakes and glaciers the whole way. You can see more glaciers from this parkway than any other road in the world. You can also see a fair amount of wildlife, even right from the road. I saw mountain goats, big horn sheep, caribou and a huge bull elk.

Thankfully, I haven’t met any bears or grizzlies on the trail yet. Jasper is more known for the wildlife and backcountry hiking and not so much for day hiking. But we managed to do a few nice hikes. On Saturday after getting Abbey out on a moderately easy trail I felt like I was coming down with a cold or something. I had planned on doing another hike but decided to go up to Miette Hot Springs instead. I figured I’d try and steam it out of me. Either it worked or it was just a 24 hour bug because the next day I felt much better. It was a long drive up to the hot springs and Abbey was stuck in the RV the whole time, so on the way back I pulled off and took her down to the river valley. In this particular spot the river was really a series of braided channels with gravel bars and mud flats all throughout. We saw a guy fly fishing and Abbey was doing some fishing of her own. She had a ball running through the water as usual.

Unfortunately, there have been wildfires in British Columbia so many of the days have been hazy from the smoke, which isn’t great for picture taking. But it’s better than rain and doesn’t hurt the hiking at all. It has actually been fairly warm with most days in the 70s and a couple in the low 80s. At night it cools off into the 40s so it’s great sleeping weather. We stayed 3 nights near Jasper townsite before heading back down the Icefield Parkway. On the way up we pretty much drove straight through with only a few stops for sightseeing. I found out later that at one of the places we did stop, Athabasca Falls, an Italian tourist died just four days earlier. He climbed over the rail, slipped and fell in just above the falls. On the way back down we spent a few nights and stretched it out a bit. We stopped at the Icefield Centre which has some nice exhibits on the glaciers and they let you go out on the edge of one. After reading about how dangerous it is and how you can easily fall into a crevasse and be crushed by the ice, I really don’t have a strong desire to go exploring on one. I tried to take Abbey on a short, but steep hike to get a closeup view of another glacier. She was doing fine until the wind picked up near the top. I was having a hard time getting her to continue when this couple saw her and started petting her. I had to explain to them that she is afraid of the wind because of the noise it makes, but I didn’t feel too funny because the woman had her head almost completely wrapped in a scarf. She said “I don’t like it either,” as she pointed to her head. To top things off we got a bunch of thunderstorms early the next morning so I barely got Abbey out that day. It wasn’t a great day as it rained off and on all day long. It was our first real washout. So the next morning I headed down to Lake Louise with hopes for better luck with Abbey and the weather.

Maligne Lake
Mt. Edith Cavell
Angel Glacier on Edith Cavell
Cavell Lake and Glacier
Sunwapta Falls
Waterfowl Lake
Can you see the wild animal?

Posted by Ed at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Sunday, the 13th, I finally left Jim’s ranch and headed to Canada. Going north from Tonasket you see nothing but orchards and vineyards as you cross the border. There are fruit stands and signs for wineries everywhere. Since I had a long drive I didn’t partake of the wine tasting opportunities, but I did stock up on fruit. It’s funny, but right away I could tell I was no longer in the US, even though Canada is not all that different. It just has a different feel to it, almost like that of a European country. I found a place to stay for the night along the way and headed out again in the morning, finally reaching Mt. Revelstoke NP by late morning. It’s one of the smaller national parks and doesn’t even have a campground, but we drove up to just below the summit. No use hiking up a steep trail when you can drive up. Besides, it had been about 10 days since our last real hike so we took a moderately level trail to a lake. Only thing was that it turned out longer than I thought so we were both pretty tired afterwards. It was a nice introduction to the Canadian Rockies. We got some good views of the peaks and glaciers in the distance getting me excited for what was to come in the next few weeks.

We camped in Glacier NP that night. The campground wasn’t great but it served its purpose. One funny thing about the parks around here is that most of them have a major highway running through them. It’s not as big as our interstates, but it is 4-lane in spots and there is plenty of truck traffic since it’s the major east-west route through Canada. With the parks being quite mountainous the highway is one of the few roads through them so, as a result, many of the campgrounds are not far off the highway. This means that they can be pretty noisy. Luckily, the traffic dies down almost completely at night. The other funny thing is that they charge you extra if you have a campfire – every night! I thought this was pretty strange, not to mention expensive at C$8, so I asked one of the workers about it. She said that they have a problem with people bringing their own wood which can be infested with beetles that will kill the trees, so they supply the firewood and charge you for it. Abbey doesn’t like campfires (yes, due to the crackling of the wood), so one of her neuroses has finally saved me money instead of costing me. Glacier didn’t have a lot in the way of sightseeing or hiking so we moved on to Yoho NP the next day. It borders both Banff and Jasper but is smaller and less well-known. It has some nice hikes so I drove up to Emerald Lake after I found a campsite. Emerald Lake, like all lakes around here, gets its blue-green color from something they call “rock flour”. Rocks in the glaciers get ground up into a fine silt as they move downhill and the silt gets carried into streams, rivers and eventually lakes by the glacial meltwater. The silt gets suspended in the lake water to make it cloudy and they get their blue-green color because that is the only light that gets reflected back to the surface. The streams and rivers are more grey and very cloudy. Poor Abbey has a tough time seeing rocks and fish in the lakes, but she still tries. We hiked around the lake on a real easy trail but it was long enough to give us enough exercise without wearing us out too much. I was saving my legs for the Iceline Trail the following day. Abbey got to stay behind in the RV because it was about 13 miles with a lot of elevation gain. It gave me some great views of Takakkaw Falls, some glaciers and the icefield above.

One thing you won’t find in the Canadian Rockies is solitude. And you’re just as likely to hear French, German or some other language as you are English. You can escape a lot of the crowds if you avoid the bus tours and go out on some of the longer hikes, but even those are fairly crowded. And just like I’ve noticed in the States lately, the hikers are of all ages with many in their 60s and 70s. Despite the crowds though, it is well worth it. The Rockies here don’t seem to be as high as Colorado, but there are tons of glaciers and huge ice fields if you get up high enough to see them. I only wish there was a little more snow on the peaks, but it is mid-August and the mountains are still impressive nonetheless. It just seems that mountains look so much more picturesque with snow covering them, or at least their tops.

The next day and a half I had to be around an internet connection and phone so I could complete the purchase of my land. So we detoured from my original plan a little and went to Banff for a night. Unlike American NPs, many of the Canadian parks have a town, or townsite as they call it, inside the park. They are essentially normal towns or cities with schools and everything, though they are mostly geared to the tourist industry. Banff seemed like a nice place to hang out so I am looking forward to coming back here after visiting Jasper NP up north. Plus Banff NP seems to have the best selection of day hikes.

Posted by Ed at 3:17 PM | Permalink

Back in March I met a couple in New Mexico who were going to go to north central Washington to look at some property. They ended up liking it enough to buy some property so they gave me the website and contact information. I made some inquiries but never made it up here until now. The owner/realtor, Jim Platt, owns a ranch near Tonasket, a small town in an area bordering Canada which is called the Okanogan Highlands. It sits between the Cascades and the western reaches of the Rockies and is much drier than the western slope of the Cascades. It has a number of charming, little towns though no large or dominant cities. They tell me that it actually has four distinct seasons which you don’t find many places. Jim invited me to stay at his ranch for the weekend, but he also invited a number of other people too. He was so busy he didn’t have a lot of time to spend with each group, but I was able to go out looking at a number of properties with some of the other people there. I parked in front of his house and Abbey and I enjoyed hanging out there for the weekend. He has horses, llamas and a bunch of rabbits. When I first drove up I saw a bunch of rabbits hanging around. These rabbits didn’t look wild, though. They looked like the pet store variety, but were just running around the ranch loose. It turns out that one of his former caretakers raised rabbits and a couple of them got loose. True to form they multiplied... well… like rabbits, but the local wildlife has kept things under control. Abbey didn’t take long to notice them and she has been getting most of her exercise by chasing them. Once I realized she wasn’t going to catch them I let her chase them whenever she wanted to. He also had some llamas, including 3 babies, and 7 horses. Abbey pretty much ignored the llamas and horses until the last day when she got brave (or stupid) and chased one of the llamas. Luckily, it ran away instead of punting her back over the fence.

It was an interesting weekend and I met a lot of nice people. Jim’s ranch is in the Aeneas Valley outside of Tonasket and he seems to have owned a sizable amount of the land in the valley at one time or another. He has sold most of that land and he seems to have built an interesting community here. He knows nearly everyone since he has sold them the property and he tries to get all of them to get to know one another as well. It just seemed to have a good feel to me. Ironically, I didn’t get to see the property that I originally came to see. Jim had to go back to Seattle for the week so he asked me to stick around until the following Friday so he could show me the property and I could experience the Omak Stampede, a local highlight. I decided to stay even before I realized I left my camera in Jim’s car, which was now with him back in Seattle. I was going to go up to Canada for a few days since a large part of the Canadian wine country is just over the border, but I ended up staying at Jim’s place while I did some work, and had some done, on my RV. It’s nice and peaceful here, and it’s kind of cool hearing the nightly chorus of the coyotes every night around 9. Tonight’s full moon seemed to get them a little more excited than usual. During the week I pretty much had the place to myself except for the caretakers, and older Romanian couple. The wife would come over everyday to move the sprinklers (Jim’s a bit of a nut on watering his lawn and he keeps the sprinklers going 24 hours a day from May to September) and do other things around the house. I got to know her a little bit though our conversations were never too involved because her English is still pretty weak. She brought me over some peaches and tomatoes, and when Jim was there, she would bring over stuff she baked. She’s real sweet. Her husband is definitely from the old country, but they are both very hard workers. They are building a woodworking shop themselves on their own property because he plans to make furniture and cabinets after they build their house. If I ever build I know where I can get a lot of my woodwork done. One of the days I had lunch at a friend of Jim’s house. Mort is a real interesting character who I had met at dinner the previous Saturday. He’s in his 70s and still works fulltime, though for himself. He’s done a bunch of very different things in his lifetime from being a journalist to a lawyer, and he even lived on a sailboat for a while. So it was real interesting for me to talk to him and get some inspiration.

Jim came back Friday afternoon and we went to look at one of the properties again. I had gone during the week to see the property he didn’t get to show me the previous weekend, but I wasn’t as interested in it. When I saw the other property for the second time it just had a good feeling to me. I really liked the views. Plus, it has a creek running through it named Edwards Creek. How perfect is that? It is 20 acres, has some trees and some pasture land, is only one property away from the state and national forest and you can even see the Cascades from it. I had gone back and forth all week about it, but when we got back to Jim’s ranch I decided to go ahead with it. It’ll take a little while to close on it, but it looks like it should go through without a hitch. So, if anyone wants to really get away from it all, you can always camp on my land in the Aeneas Valley near Tonasket, WA. As a bonus, it’s only about 40 miles from the Canadian border and Canada’s largest wine region. See the pictures below.

Since I had already stayed the extra week I figured it was worth staying one more day to experience the Omak Stampede and Suicide Race. Jim and I went with yet another couple there looking at property on Saturday night. It was my first rodeo and it didn’t disappoint. It was a real hoot. We got their just in time to see them introduce all the Rodeo Queens from other rodeos on the circuit. I think I liked the buckin’ bronc and buckin’ bull riding the best. I don’t think I’ll ever be trying that, though. The salute to our armed forces with the Humvee tearing up the dirt in the arena, and the political/ideological editorials by the PA announcer got a little over the top, but the rest had that real, small, western town feel. It almost felt like we were in a movie – kind of like Bull Durham at the minor league baseball park. I couldn’t believe how far some of the contestants came to participate, and how much some of the better ones have won in their rodeo careers. The climax of the evening was the Suicide Race. I think you either have to be insane or drunk to participate. They ride on horseback down this unbelievably steep hill about 500 ft. down to the river, cross the river, go up the bank on the other side and then into the arena and across the finish line. Supposedly it’s not uncommon for horses to get badly hurt, but luckily none did that night. From where we were we could only see the horses go down the hill and then later come into the arena. I would’ve liked to see them cross the river too. At least now I can say I’ve been to the world famous Omak Stampede and Suicide Race. If anyone wants to join me next year, it’s always the 2nd weekend in August and next year’s will be the 74th.

There were wildfires nearby so the sky was filled with smoke on some days

Property Pictures

Posted by Ed at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Well I finally found a place in my mind to rival the beauty of the Colorado Rockies. I think I’ve fallen in love with the northern Cascade Mountains in Washington. They’re not as high as the Colorado Rockies, but they are more jagged and, I think, more picturesque. There are also a large number of glaciers which means that many of the peaks are snow covered year round. Another great thing about it is that there aren’t many people. Finding a campsite in August has been no problem at all, though I have been trying midweek. Of course, I haven’t been to the Canadian Rockies yet, which is supposed to put their American counterparts to shame. I can’t wait.

On Sunday afternoon I drove up to Baker Lake. It’s in the Mt. Baker – Snoqualmie NF. Another thing about Washington is that it has great names like Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Sammamish, and a hundred other places ending in “mish”. Anyways, I wanted to get us both out for some exercise so we drove 10 miles up a dirt road (after deflating my tires a bit so it wouldn’t be so rough) to hike the trail up to Anderson Lakes. It was late and still pretty overcast, but it felt good to get out and Abbey enjoyed the lake when we got there. On the drive up I had spotted a few good possibilities for boondocking so I wouldn’t have to drive all the way down that dirt road again ‘til morning. The best one was a little down off the road overlooking the valley which was still clouded over when we got there.

In the morning I was pleasantly surprised to see a mountain, which I figured was Mt. Shuksan, peaking out above the clouds in front of us. It’s a pretty cool thing to be above the clouds, especially when you’ve driven there. I got a few good pictures before I glanced to my left and saw Mt. Baker, the highest peak in the area, was staring right down on top of me from the west. It was a spectacular view of the heavily-glaciated peak, the same one I saw from the kayak in the San Juans only A LOT closer. What a campsite. Probably my best one yet!

After eating breakfast and soaking up the view for a while, we drove back down the 10 mile dirt road only now it didn’t seem so bad. I wanted to try and get Abbey out again because I knew the next day I wanted to take a tough hike without her. So we drove up another dirt road, this time for only 7 miles, to the trailhead for Sauk Mt. The clouds were still kind of thick and it was already afternoon so we ate lunch first. After lunch Abbey wanted no part of hiking up a steep trail (how did she know it was going to be that steep?) so I set off on my own. Well, me and the 40 other people who were hiking the trail that day. It was a good thing that Abbey didn’t go because it was one switchback after another for 2 miles, but it was worth it when I finally made it to the top. The clouds lifted enough to see many of the surrounding peaks, though not the tallest ones. At the top I met a nice older couple who lived in the San Juan Islands and had a real sweet German Shepherd with them. Believe it or not, her name was Abbey too, so I had to get a picture of her. I spent a while on top talking to the couple and a father and daughter who came up soon after. The daughter goes to school at Mt. Holyoke in western Mass. so they knew where Saratoga is. With Abbey I usually don’t get to sit and enjoy the view so it was nice to stop for a while at the top. That night we camped just outside North Cascades National Park at a forest service campground on a creek.

Of course, I took Abbey down to the creek that night and the next morning before driving up to the Cascade Pass trailhead. I had read in a guidebook that the road was really rough and I had originally figured that I would have to forgo this trail, but at the ranger station I found out that it had recently been re-graded and it wasn’t so bad. With my tires still deflated, it wasn’t too bad. At least it was only washboard for about 2 to 3 of the 13 unpaved miles. I think I got a few funny looks when I pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead. Needless to say I was the only motorhome in the parking lot. Poor Abbey got locked inside again, but she would’ve never made it. I thought Sauk Mt. was bad, but I thought the switchbacks to Cascade Pass would never end. They lasted for nearly 3 miles before the trail leveled off for the last half mile or so. But the views at the top were worth it. It didn’t take too long either, so I hiked up further still toward the Sahale Glacier for some more spectacular views. This was the type of hike that I loved last year and haven’t had many of yet this year. It got me excited about hiking again just when I was starting to get a little bored with it. The only problem was that the batteries in my camera died and for some reason I only had 3 spares in my pack. One of them fell out at some point. So I didn’t get as many pictures as I wanted to, but the pictures never do the views justice anyway. Five hours after starting I was back down at the RV letting Abbey out of her “cell”. She was pretty excited to get out of there even though it wasn’t hot at all.

A cool thing about North Cascades NP is that it is split in two and between the two halves is Ross Lake National Recreation Area. The great thing about this is that dogs are allowed on trails in the NRA. Since Abbey didn’t have much of a day while I was hiking to the pass, the next day I had picked out a few trails that she could go on, both with water nearby. After doing a short hike in the morning near the river and having lunch, we headed out on the Diablo Lake trail. There was a sign about mountain lion sitings at the trailhead so I was a bit more alert than usual. I was just thinking that I have never run into any large animals on the trail in over 11 years of hiking with Abbey when she stuck her nose up in the air and jumped up on a small embankment on the side of the trail. Right away I saw a bear cub and its mother about 20 yards off the trail. Luckily Abbey didn’t see them so I pulled her back real quick. The cub scrambled up a nearby tree but the mother only put her nose in the air checking for what was there. I don’t know if she saw us, but I didn’t stick around long to find out. After backing down the trail to what seemed like a safe distance I turned around and got out of there in a hurry. I had planned on doing a longer hike, but I wasn’t going any further after that. Instead I drove to our next campground, which was on a lake, and let Abbey swim for quite a while to make up for the lost hiking. The next day we did another hike that Abbey could go on and I could take it easy again. I wanted to give my knees a few days off before doing another big elevation hike. On Friday, after 2 easy days, I left Abbey in the RV and hiked to the top of Maple Pass. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but the views from the top were as good as I expected. On the way up I kept crossing paths with a group from the Appalachian Mountain Club, most of whom were from the northeast. It seems like I’ve been meeting more people on the trail lately.

After the hike we left the beautiful Northern Cascades for the drier climate of the Okanogan Highlands. More on that next time.

Lake Ann
More from Maple Pass

Posted by Ed at 12:56 PM | Permalink