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After hiking in the North Cascades for two days without actually making it into the national park, we ventured further along highway 20 and spent our third day in the park. Besides highway 20 there are a few other access points to North Cascade National Park, but overall, even more so than most national parks, if you don’t get on the trail and take a hike or backpack trip you aren’t going to see very much here. We had pondered a backpack trip during our planning, but a couple weeks out from departure the available overnight permits were pretty few and far between. We could either backpack in as far as we could day hike (too short), or we could pack in 20 plus miles (too long). We opted for day hikes instead.

We headed to the Thunder Creek trail and up the drainage we went.

The Thunder Creek trailhead shares space with a campground and a popular lake access, but once we were up the trail a short distance we left nearly all the crowds behind. Once we crossed over the creek at mile 1, we only saw a few backpackers the remainder of our hike.

The massive trees were a reminder we were on the ‘other side’ of the Cascades.

We enjoyed a trailside lunch at a side creek and returned the way we came. It was plenty hot, so we were ever so grateful for the freezer in the truck camper storing a few frozen popsicles for our return to the trailhead. Sometimes it’s the little things that make the day.

The next day we moved west from our base camp near Mazama. As we passed back through the park we checked out a few viewpoints and short trails. Ross and Diablo reservoirs (they are given the misleading name of ‘lake’ on maps) frame a lot of the views from the highway 20 corridor. You get a small hint of the rugged mountains that make up most of the park.

By late afternoon we made our way to the Mineral Park campground, our only advance reservation for a campground on our two week loop. Although all the sites were supposedly booked it seemed pretty quiet. This set us up for our final hike in North Cascades, which apparently is the parks most popular, the hike to Cascade Pass.

The next morning we were off to the trailhead for Cascade Pass. The fog and clouds were hanging low when we arrived, and most of the climb up to the pass was drippy and cool.

There were plenty of nice wildflowers as we started to reach the alpine zone.

When we reached the pass the clouds were starting to lift, providing a few teases of views as a mountain peeked out here and there.

We passed some time with lunch and watching the hoary marmots and pika scurry across the talus slopes, as we waited for the sun to slowly burn off the fog clinging to the mountains.

The clouds lifted enough to be able to enjoy some mountain views.

Before we started down we spied a few mountain goats also enjoying the view.

I sure am glad those clouds lifted, being in the mountains is more enjoyable when you can actually see them.

It was all downhill from the pass, so down we went. It was like taking an entirely different hike on the way down, with views of the melting snowfields and mountains stretching up into the clouds.

Our time at North Cascade National Park was coming to a close, We’d be moving on to the Olympic Peninsula the next morning.