A Drive Through North Cascades National Park

A plan to backpack in North Cascades followed by another overnight to explore some short hikes fell to the wayside as we encountered significant smoke and very poor air quality.

Camped near Lake Roosevelt

The night before we changed our plans from camping at a Spokane area golf course to get closer to North Cascades. I found a spot on Roosevelt Lake near Grand Coulee. The weather was perfect and it was nice to have the time and space to get our backpacking gear in order.

Laser show at Grand Coulee Dam

This also meant we could see the Grand Coulee Dam! And the nightly laser light show! An impressive engineering feat. Not as visually dramatic as the Hoover Dam but still massive.

Hazy vista in North Cascades

The next morning as we drove to the Easy Pass trailhead we grew very concerned about the air quality. The further west we got and the higher we climbed, the worse everything looked. Neither of us were interested in a 3,000 climb to what would likely be no payoff view because of the haze. So we did a dry by and enjoyed some beautiful overlook views.

Our ferry to the peninsula

I scrambled to see if we could modify our ferry destination and get over to the Olympic Peninsula two days earlier than planned. And, swap in a new backpacking trip in cleaner air. I could so we did, taking the ferry from Coupeville to Port Townsend. There we found a camping spot at the fairgrounds. Thanks to Mod Pizza we didn’t have to cook on what seemed like an endless day of driving.