After spending the morning and early afternoon with family, Sue and I took off for the Seattle area. We had several choices for routes, but we decided to drive Highway 20 through the Northern Cascades. The roads were recently opened and the scenery definitely did not disappoint! I love driving through areas like that, with the cool air, pine forest smell, and beautiful views.
On the way up the mountains, we went through a nice town called Winthrop. It’s built like an old-time Western town, with boardwalks, period-style buildings, and lots of fun shops. It was a good place to get out for a few minutes, stretch our legs, and explore a bit. Plus Sue got some handcrafted earrings!
After leaving Winthrop, we continued on our journey, slowly but surely heading up the mountains. I’ll just say that they are stunning, and at this time of year (June), there were waterfalls everywhere from the melting snow. Sue loves waterfalls and we stopped when we could find a pull-out to look and take some pictures.
One thing that surprised me was the the difference between the east and west slopes of the Cascades. I’ve heard that the west side is impacted by the moist air and heavy moisture content in the clouds, compared to the rain shadow on the west side, but the difference was stark and amazing. Other than the blanket of pine tress, the east side seemed drier, little underbrush in the forests, and just rock and dirt on the sides of the the road, mostly dry-climate vegetation. But when we got to the west side, oh my goodness! All the rocks had thick moss on them, there were fern-like plants everywhere, and lots of undergrowth that didn’t exist on the east side. Much more tropical looking! That’s what we are here to experience and we’ve already had a taste of it.
East Side of the Cascades
Waterfalls from the melting snow
On the way up to the pass, from the east side of the Cascades
Beautiful view of the valley in the Cascades that we just drove up
Waterfall on West Side of Cascades
Sue Loves Waterfalls!
On the west side, lots of vegetation, and the rocks were all covered with some kind of moss or lichen
Fern-like plants were growing everywhere
There was definitely thicker underbrush on the west side
That plant that was attached to the rock was at least an inch thick. I could press in a good inch before hitting the rock.
There were more waterfalls, everywhere, on both sides of the pass.
The Skagit River has been dammed in several places to provide electricity for Seattle, so it has been turned into a deep, narrow lake running down a gorge. At one spot there was a huge waterfall by a bridge on the road with a walking area along the bridge. We walked out onto the bridge and it is high above the chasm, but breathtaking to be right over the falls and the river. Across the road was a short hike to an overlook of Gorge Lake, formerly the Skagit River, which was easy and walked us through the rainforest woods. So cool!
It took longer than I had planned to get across the Cascades. Part of that was due to the slower going, but part of it was due to us stopping, looking, taking pictures, and hiking. We got to I-5 and decided not to press on to Seattle quite yet, so got a room at the Holiday Inn Express in Marysville, about 35 miles north of Seattle. The room is nice, clean and roomy. It’s late, and we’ll head to Seattle in the morning after a good night’s rest.
