Thunderknob and Ladder Creek Falls

On our last full day at North Cascades, we decided to get in a couple of hikes.  The Thunderknob trailhead starts between two campsites (which seemed a little wierd) at Colonial Campground about 10 miles east of Newhalem where we were camped.

 

The hike begins with crossing over two log bridges...

 

and then a dry creek bed.

 

Then we entered the forest where it was nice and cool.

The forest thinned out some...

 

and we began climbing...

 

a series of switchbacks.

We could peek out between the trees and see Colonial Peak (elev. 7,772 ft.).

Then, we continued climbing...

up more switchbacks...

 

We came upon this little marshy pond...

...and continued heading up to Thunderknob.

After a 635 ft. climb over 1.8 miles, we reached the top.  We could see Davis Peak to the west and McMillan Spires on further back ...

 

...and Hwy 20 way down below.

 

This is Davis Peak (elevation 7,054 ft.):

And these are McMillan Spires (elevation 8,000-8,040 ft):

We could also see the turquoise green Diablo Lake.

From other lookouts at the top, we now see Pyramid Peak (elevation 7,182 ft.)

and also had a better view of Colonial Peak which we had "peeked at" through the trees on the way up.

Way off to the south, we could just barely see Ruby Mountain (elevation 7,408 ft).

 

From a bench where we rested for a little while, we could see Jack Mountain (elevation 9,066 ft) to the east.

On the way back down, I noticed this little speck in the glacier at the top of Colonial Peak.  Was it Sasquatch?  (Double-click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Nope, just a tree (or tree top).

I counted 23 switchbacks on the way back down the trail.  The switchbacks definitely made the 635 foot elevation climb up and back down much easier. 

On the way back from the Thunderknob trail, we stopped in Newhalem again because we wanted to see the Ladder Creek Falls located behind the Gorge Creek Powerhouse.

The powerhouse for the Gorge Dam is located a couple of miles downstream from the dam.  The reason why is that the water from the dam is diverted through a 20' tunnel to the powerhouse to create the velocity needed for the turbines in the powerhouse to work.    We crossed this suspension bridge...

over the Skagit River.

Ladder Creek Falls is a three-tiered waterfalls with a total height of 108 feet.  J. D. Ross, the "father of Seattle City Lights" developed the trail to the falls and the surrounding gardens.  A lot of the gardens are still maintained as are parts of the trail.

The falls are fed by Ladder Creek Glacier and would be even bigger and stronger except that a large part of the falls are diverted into the Gorge Powerhouse.  The waterfalls and surroundings are beautiful.

We returned later to see the falls again because they are illuminated at night with multi-colored lights.

 

 

 

The only disappointing part of the day is that it rained that evening and we did not get to have our last campfire at Newhalem Campground.   :(