Hi everyone,

I need to fill you in on our Seattle area adventures but we are having such an amazing time here in North Cascade that I thought I would go ahead and tell you about this part of our trip now.  Especially since we take off tomorrow to head to the Washington coast, hop a ferry and go see Stacy and Craig in Port Townsend.   We arrived in the North Cascade area on Saturday afternoon (9/7) and the weather was and has been spectacular.   After much discussion about where to camp, we scrapped our plans to camp in the National Park itself in favor of the KOA in Concrete, Washington because it had water and electricity.  To our never-ending shame, we remain “whores for the juice.”
We got a great campsite at a great price and this is the nicest KOA and campground we have visited so far.
 
As I was backing the Airstream into the camping space, (a procedure that still instills quite a bit of anxiety) I asked Kim what was behind our campsite. She went and looked and came back and said, “It is a Putt Putt course and I will kick your ass.” After dinner, that is exactly what she did. I was up 2 strokes with 3 holes to go and after she sank 2 holes in one, I was the big loser!
I did however redeem myself later that night at the Mah Jong!
We spent Sunday exploring the park. It is fairly primitive which means there wasn’t many structures, signage, lodges, etc. That combined with the lack of many visitors to the park at this time of year, made it one of our favorites. We hit the Visitor’s Center and the ranger suggested a small hike for today and a longer one for the next day. We drove to the Gorge Dam which was built in 1920 to provide power throughout the region as far as Seattle.
Then hiked over the suspension bridge (great job, Kim) and up to Gorge Creek Falls.
After our short hike, we decided to have a picnic lunch. Kim said “I am going Peg and Bill on you, I need a picnic table.” I decided to turn towards Diablo Lake because I was certain that I innately knew there would be a picnic table nearby. We ended up on top of Diablo Dam!

We decided to drive over the damn (pun intended) thing and have lunch down by the lake.

After a fabulous sandwich prepared by yours truly and some chips, we headed to Thunder Knob Trail for a 3 mile trek. The first thing we encountered is a washed out section of trail that we had to ford.

Renee….it totally reminded me of crossing that log on our hike in Crested Butte but not nearly as scary!
Early in our hike, I conducted an “oh shit there is a freakin bear” drill to ensure I was prepared and able to deploy by bear spray quickly and efficiently.

Meanwhile, back in Boulder, apparently Richard and Kellye were also concerned about a bear attack at the Longs Peak Scottish Festival.

During the hike, we saw all sorts of things growing in what essentially is a rainforest. We saw moss on trees and rocks, mushrooms of every shape and size as well as:

We hiked to the top of the trail and ended our day with a great view.
Tomorrow, we are off for an awesome hike billed as the best in North Cascade so we are beyond psyched.