Let's Just Go Somewhere: North Cascades Scenic Byway

We slept in a little later knowing we could not turn the generator on to charge the batteries until 8 am. After breakfast, we enjoyed sitting outside and reading a little while. We have not seen any squirrels but we did see this little chipmunk.

After the generator had charged the batteries, we decided to take a day trip and head east across the North Cascades Scenic Byway.

On the south side of the road, we could see Skagit River but here there was very little water here...

because of the Gorge Dam.

At the Gorge Dam Overlook, we could see Gorge Creek Falls.

We stopped at the Gorge Lake Campground, which had 7 free no hookup sites right next to Gorge Lake.

Gorge Dam controls the water going into Skagit River. Diablo Dam, which is a little further upstream controls the water going into Gorge Lake. Ross Dam even further upstream controls the water going into Diablo Lake. All three of these dams are a part of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project and supply 25% of Seattle's electric power (Wikipedia).

It's kind of sad what all those big electric towers and power lines do to the beauty of the Skagit River Valley but I guess it is no different than all the dams along the Tennessee River back home that provide electricity to millions of people in the southeast. Fortunately, when we got further east of Diablo Lake and began climbing up toward Washington Pass, the electric towers went away and the mountain views...

...were only obstructed by trees....

...but that's o.k. because we could still see the Cascade Mountains between the trees.

And the views were beautiful.

These pictures were taken from the Washington Pass overlook:

From the overlook,

we could see Hwy 20 east below us.

And after we got on Hwy 20 east, we could see where we had been on the overlook above us.

As we headed further east, the terrain became more dry.

We stopped to get gas in Winthrop which only had one gas station (at $4.09/gallon). Ouch!

In the late 1800's, gold was discovered and mined near Winthrop until after the turn of the century. After that, it was primarily an agricultural town. But after Hwy 20 was completed, it became more of a tourist attraction with a western theme using some of the original buildings for stores and restaurants.

We had a late lunch/dinner at a mexican restaurant and then headed back west on Hwy 20. We prefer road trips (and hikes) that are loops so we are not seeing the same thing twice. However, with this "out-there-and-back" day trip on Hwy 20 (now going west to east), we got a completely different perspective.

For one thing, we realized how long the grade was both up to Washington Pass and then especially back down on the western side. We were REALLY glad we had not chosen to drive Hwy 20 in the motorhome when we were coming from Idaho. When we crested the pass, it seemed like we would drove down, down, and then down some more. I bet it would have been fun on a bike! :)

We saw this small forest fire on the side of the mountain. There were signs at a couple of the places we had stopped today stating they were aware of the forest fires.