Hiking Holiday - Lake Ann and Heather Pass

These pictures are from day two of our North Cascades trip, specifically July 1st.  We camped at a primitive forest service campground on the west side of the North Cascades National Park cut-through.  There are two districts to the park, which stretches up to Canada.  It is bisected, east to west, by Highway 20.  Highway 20 follows the once fast and furious Skagit River, put into hard service by several Seattle Lights hydroelectric dams.  Since dam construction in the 1960's, the zone is no longer national park material, but is instead the Ross Lake National Recreation Area.  Anyway, we drove through that on highway 20, stopping here and there for views, to get to our hike which started at Rainy Pass in the national forest just to the east of the park.  We probably came up within a half mile of the park boundary on the trail at the top.  We picked the hike because of the lake's name, and it did not disappoint!

Peering down at a hydroelectric dam on the once fast and furious Skagit River

Starting off on our hike toward Lake Ann

So many wild lilies!

We ended up slogging through a lot of slippery snow, so we had to acquire some hiking sticks from the detritus of the forest.  We wouldn't have made it to our destination otherwise.

Plants for whom spring was just arriving

A little creek rolling down from Lake Ann

Lake Ann herself, shimmering in the sunlight

Miss Anne at Lake Ann

Testing out the snow in his stocking feet

These flowers were all springing up from little soggy patches nearly under water.

After we made it to Lake Ann, we retraced some of our steps and then hiked up above it to Heather Pass where we could have crossed into the park, but instead looked down at Lake Ann before heading home.

It was impossible to capture the lurid shade of green this moss glowed with my camera.

Looking down on Lake Ann

So many incredible wildflowers on this trip!

These last three shots are from Highway 20 heading west along the Skagit River valley into the sunset.