Dave G. and I decide to do some hiking in North Cascades National Park, which has the highest fatalities-per-visit rate of any national park.

There are few accommodations near the park and they're all booked; Dave finds a motel in the town of Sedro-Wooley, which is west of the park on hwy 20.

Tues 14 Jul

I fly to SeaTac, walk a mile or two to the Link Light Rail station, and take the train to the Roosevelt station, where Dave picks me up around 2:30PM. Compared to BART, the train is cheaper and more pleasant.

We stop at a 7-11 and get sandwiches. Dave suggests that we do a 'sunset hike' to Mt. Pilchuck. We drive on the Mountain Loop Hwy to Verlot, then on a ~5 mile dirt road to the trailhead.

This hike turns out to be pretty stiff: 5.5 miles round trip and 2300' vertical.

It's pretty warm - 80s - so we sweat a lot. I take off my T-shirt to improve sweat evaporation (note to self: do this before overheating rather than after).

We stop and eat a half sandwich.

At the summit, there's a steep rock scramble up to a fire lookout. You can sleep there, first come first served. Three teenagers are there, one of whom is wearing a handgun in a holster.

There's also a 40-something guy, out of shape, drinking a tall PBR and smoking a cigarette. I talk to him for a while. He's got 4 kids. When each one turns 6, he takes them up this mountain and sleep over - a rite of passage. The last of these - this trip - had to be delayed three years because he had hip replacement surgery. He thinks this will be his last trip. The kid is there. It's kinda moving.

We descend, reaching the car a bit after 9 PM.

Thin rock, about 10' high

We backtrack to I-5, go N for ~20 miles, then E on hwy 20 for a few miles to Sedro-Wooley. We eschew fast-food places and have the rest of the sandwiches for dinner. We do, however, pick up a six-pack of IPAs at a 24-hour store.

The Kulshan Hotel (Indian name for Mt. Baker) is modern. The woman at the desk, Haley, tells us how good the breakfast buffet is - especially the potatoes. The chef is a magician with potatoes.

The room is OK, with a separate bedroom for me and a fold-out sofa for Dave. I note with apprehension that the elevator shaft directly abuts my room.

Wed 15 Jul

I have a zero-sleep night, exacerbated by the elevator, which starts up around 6 AM and is like an unwanted low-frequency alarm clock. I tell this to the front desk; they say we can move to a different room (207) the next night, but we'll have to return to 305 the third night. Fine.

The breakfast buffet does not look good. There's corned beef hash (from a can), but no potatoes as such. So we go to Bonnie Jo's in the downtown area. We both get the pancakes/eggs/sausage combo; the pancakes are massive.

We drive 90+ min to the Mt. Sahale trailhead, east on hwy 120 then about 10 miles up a long dirt road. The parking lot is packed; we park a bit down the road.

The first 2.5 miles of the hike are a sequence of ~35 switchbacks, which go back and forth without gaining much elevation. Irritating. I prefer an 8% grade or more.

Dave gets a blood sugar crash; maybe too many carbs from the pancakes and syrup. We rest a bit and he gradually recovers.

The trail goes up a valley with towering peaks on both sides. The right side is north-facing and has lots of snow. It resembles the Swiss Alps.

The trail gets a bit steeper and goes to a saddle at the top of the headwall. Trails lead down the far side, and left and right. We eat a half sandwich. A female mountain goat wanders by with her ~2 year old kid. She's halfway through shedding her winter coat and looks kinda ragged.

A group of Spaniards is coming down from the direction of the summit. People chat about World Cup. The Spaniards are from Madrid; I tell them I'm going to Sierra de Guarra but they haven't heard of it, though they know Huesca.

We continue on the trail to the left, which leads to Mt. Sahale. It becomes steeper and more difficult, crossing slopes of loose small (6") rocks.

Also insanely scenic.

The trees give way to krummholz (stunted trees). We cross a few patches of snow. The ridge looks down onto Doubtful Lake, about 1000' below.

We pass more goats. A young hiker is slumped by the site of the trail, looking dead but actually just taking a nap.

The trail eventually reaches the Sahale Arm, a fairly steep ridge above the treeline. The trail continues up toward the summit, to the Sahale Glacier Campground maybe 1000' higher. From there it's a semi-technical climb (snow and rock) to the summit.

We rest a bit. Dave continues up a bit, maybe 30 min, 200' vertical. I'm very happy to stay where I am and recharge. I've brought 1.5 quarts of water instead of the usual 1, and I try to stay well hydrated.

We descend.

Halfway down there's a group of goats on the path - 2 pairs of adults and several kids of various ages - having some kind of family dispute; one of the males is acting aggressive, and the youngest kid is bleating a lot. I (and other hikers coming up) wait for this to settle down before proceeding. The goats have short, sharp horns.

We reach the pass. The napping guy is there; he's waiting for his friends to descend from the summit, and trying to decide whether to head down. He says he's climbed Rainier, but this turns out to be a vast exaggeration.

We head down. We're chatting about whether first-time unguided climbers could make it up Disappointment Cleaver. A pair of ascending hikers overhear this and excitedly say that they did exactly this recently. Small world!

The 35 switchbacks are much more irritating on the way down. It seems like whoever designed the trail wanted to make it as long as possible.

Dave is suffering from blisters under his outer toes on both feet. I'm generally OK - a little back soreness. My new Merrell boots are comfortable, although they have a little delamination already.

We drive back to hwy 20, reaching Marblemount just before 8. I'm in the mood for a burger and beer. There are 2 options. We try the Upriver Grill and Taproom. The staff ignores us for a few minutes. Dave asks one of them if they can seat us for dinner, and he says 'probably not'; we leave.

The nearby Mondo Restaurant also closes at 8, but they seat us. A diminutive Korean waitress, with little English, takes our order with extreme rapidity; there's certainly no discusion of rareness. Dave gets a NA beer and Impossible burger; I get a local IPA and a regular burger, which is excellent.

Back at the motel, we get the cardkeys for our new room. They've failed to move our luggage as promised, so we do that. The new room is separated from the elevator shaft by a utility room; the noise is less but still present.

Thu 16 Jul

Another bad sleep night.

We go to the breakfast buffet, hoping for potatoes. What they offer instead is a bizarre slurry of sausage gravy (like for biscuits), scrambled eggs, bacon, and potato fragments. A 'dog's breakfast', as the Aussies say, using up leftovers. But we eat it. At least the coffee is OK.

We drive back into the park, farther this time, to Lake Ross, a reservoir formed (on the Skagit River) by a large hydroelectric dam, reportedly supplying much of the electricity for Seattle.

The plan was to rent a boat with a small outboard motor, go up the lake, and do short hikes. But the forecast is for brief thunderstorms around 2 PM. We hike down to the dock on the S side of the lake.

Ross dam

The boat rental place (and the Ross Lake Resort, a bunch of floating cabins) is on the N side, maybe 300 yds away. Dave locates the phone and calls them. After some delay the ferry (a small fast boat) arrives. The captain warns us that the weather is deteriorating, and the NPS has called in all their boats at 2 PM.

Ross Lake Resort

We cross to the rental place. We confer briefly and decide not to rent a boat. Dave suggests that they could apply our deposit to the ferry fare, and the young woman replies in a frosty/snarky way.

We cross the floating stuff, climb up to a hiking trail on the N slope, and hike maybe a mile up the lake.

Look carefully!

Sure enough, around 2 the wind picks up, there's some distant thunder, and a smattering of rain. But it all blows over in 30 min.

We walk back, continue down to the dam, cross it, then back up to the car.

We drive maybe 1/4 mile to an elevated-walkway trail that loops through some large old-growth cedars. A cold stream runs through it, and we spend some time cooling off our feet.

We make the 1+ hour drive back to Sedro-Wooley. Dave gets a hankering for ice cream, and we pass a place but it's just closed.

Insulator gazebo

Dave tells me about a play written by Weston Gaylord, the son of friends of his, and a genius with verse and prose. It involves an octopus that, when given underwater musical instruments, performs music so astonishingly great that when human musicians hear it, they instantly give up composing or playing themselves.

We go to a Mexican place, Lorenzo's, for dinner. It's just OK; I drink a lot of ice water.

We return to the hotel and return to our old room, 305 (this time we took our luggage with us). We're sitting there, splitting a beer, when the door unlocks and a guy comes in! A big guy with an exceptionally low voice. I accompany him down to the front desk to resolve things, making a joke in the elevator about being glad we had our clothes on.

The (clueless) front desk says they kept us in 207 after all. I say fine, we'll move our stuff once again. I tell the big guy about the elevator noise in 305, but he says it doesn't matter, he has to get up at 5 AM. He works for a gas/oil pipeline company.

Fri 17 Jul

Once again I sleep poorly (that's 4 nights in a row - ugh). Dave and I are both a bit sore and tired from all the hiking. Dave suggests 'car hiking', whatever that is.

The breakfast buffet finally has potatoes, sort of home fries, and they're not bad. I also have granola and yogurt.

We're at the latitude of the north end of Whidbey Island, and Dave suggests going to Deception Pass, a narrow strait between the Puget Sound and Skagit Bay. I suggest that we combine this with a visit to my relatives Laurel and Ken in Coupeville. I text them and fortunately they're free.

We do short hikes on both sides of the strait. On the ocean side, it's foggy and magical. The coast has a variety of trees, including some incongruous-looking madrones.

The park is full of beautiful 1930s-era structures.

A wedding is taking place.

A wooden statue and 4 placards tell the story of a girl who marries a sea spirit in order to keep her village fed.

There are all sorts of unusual plants.

Dave gives me updates on Woody Sullivan, who turned 80. Woody is obsessed with sundials. The interior of his office is a sundial. A sundial is tatooed on his skin. He's built the world's smallest sundial.

We proceed to Coupeville and have an absolutely wonderful visit with Laurel and Ken. Another couple stops by; Paul, a Dutch engineer who works for Boeing, and his wife Allison. Both extremely smart and nice. I ask Paul about laminar flow and it turns out that's his specialty!

At 3:30 Dave and I reluctantly leave and head for the Mulkateo ferry, then to his house on Green Lake. His new-ish dog Bean greets me with suspicion and hostility, which doesn't melt.

Chris has prepared a dinner of roast salmon and vegetables, which we enjoy on the deck.

Dave and I are exhausted but we play a short game of ping-pong, which he wins.

Sat 18 Jul

Dave and I get up at 6:30 AM, and he drives me to SeaTac (it takes 22 min with no traffic).

It's been a great visit - kind of perfect in every way - and we make a vow to do something of similar magnitude next summer,