[chris_c]

Ahhh, it's back to school time this year. In fact tomorrow is the day I have to go back, so my Dad and I went out for a camping trip up to the North Cascades as one last trip before my Senior year of college. On Sunday we drove up to the Baker Lake area to hike the Watson Lakes trail. We started off on the trail which wandered through the woods and over some small wooden bridges for a little while before openning up into a beautiful little meadow where you made the choice of whether you wanted to head left up the hill to Anderson Butte or right through the meadow towards the split off for Watson Lakes. We decided to go left to the butte so that we could get the big climb out of the way first. The trail itself up the butte was just a series of switchbacks that brought us 1100 ft up to the top of the 5420 ft butte where we were greeted with magnificent panoramic views of Baker, Shuksan, and the surrounding peaks. We sat there and rested for a while just enjoying having the warm sun and magnificent views all to ourselves. As the day was waning on though, we decided to head back down and seek out the Watson Lakes. Making our way back down the switchbacks to the meadow, we took the path to the right through the meadow this time. The meadow was long and very pleasing to look at as we walked along it. At the end of the meadow there was a great view of Baker if you looked back towards the Butte. Then the trail dove back into the forest and dropped a steep 200 feet without the use of many switchbacks, which made us cringe a little thinking about the walk back up it. At the bottom there was another little meadow that was a bit soggier than the first and you had the choice of heading up the hill to the left to Watson Lakes or heading right to the Anderson Lakes at the split in the trail. We went left to the Watson Lakes and were unfortunately not able to make it to the Anderson lakes because the day wore on too much and we needed to go find and setup our campsite still. So, we headed up a short 200 ft to the top of a little hill and then back down 400 ft of steep switchbacks on the other side. The lakes were quite well worth it as they were very pretty and sat nestled in the forest of the valley below. The larger of the two lakes was the first one that you came too. We didn't spend long looking at this lake before we decided to head over and see what the other lake looked like. As we were heading over to the second lake we had a bit of adventure in that for the second time this year we found a lost little girl crying and screaming for mommy. She was very happy to see us and she was quite disoriented as to which way her group went. We had not passed the group of 18 that she said she was with and had not seen her mom that she described, so we brought her with us over to the small lake to see if we could find her group. I eventually ran ahead while they waited behind so that I could quickly get up over the small hill to the small lake and see if anyone was there. I eventually found a lady from their group, who then called to the parents of the little girl, but they didn't seem to pay much attention, so we just went back for the little girl and she was so happy to see that I found the lady from her group. All ended well, but it is just amazing to me that no one even knew she was missing, not even her parents...scary. Anyway, once that episode was over we sat down and enjoyed the small lake for about a half hour, the water was crystal clear and the peaks in the distance reflected off the glass smooth surface. This would definitely be a good place to take advantage of the campsites at it sometime. Which reminded us that we needed to go and find our campsite for the night, so we had to get off our butts and head back up the steep hills to the car and head out to where we ended up camping near Diablo Dam. The next day after we had gotten up, we went over and my Dad showed me the Dam and we watched the throusands of salmon swimming back up the river. Then he showed me the most amazing thing. Behing this dam there is a beautiful little park with moss covered forest and ponds, and a very pretty waterfall worth seeing if you happen to be driving by the dam. I would never have guessed that I would find that stuff out behind the big powerhouse. All in all, this was a great trip, couldn't have asked for better weather or better destinations. A great way to end the summer, though one that is going to be tough to head back to the reality of school from. Chris

Baker from Anderson Butte

Shuksan from Anderson Butte

Watson Lakes

fish

falls behind dam

[chris_c]

Thanks Quark!...yes, that would be the same park in Newhalem that I was talking about. I will have to check out that walk you are talking about next time I'm up that way, as I definitely plan on going back! Chris