Falling Waters

Friday, August 12, 2011

Surrounded by fir and cedar trees, with underbrush of salal, Oregon grape, ferns and other unidentified green stuff, with a lot of mossy carpet, we are really enjoying our time at the Newhalem campground of North Cascades National Park in northern Washington State.

Our campsite is beautiful!

One Screenhouse is set up for the picnic table
and the other for our chairs.

Fred is really kicked back with feet up!

Today was a pretty laid back day. We had breakfast of omelet and pancakes about 9 am – not an early morning! We went back up route 20 a few miles to take a closer look at Gorge Creek. The creek falls 30 to 100 feet down the face of a rock cliff into a gorge that widens from a few feet where the water enters, to 100 or so feet where the road crosses it. It continues to get deeper and wider until it enters the lake backed up by the Gorge dam, several hundred yards from where the road crosses.

See our four shadows on the bridge?

Betty and Barney looking waaaaaay down
to the river.

After a sufficient amount of oohing and aahing, we drove back down route 20 to the town of Newhalem, WA, where the power house for the Gorge Dam is located.

The town of Newhalem is a Seattle City Light company town. It exists to house employees of the dam and power house. We went through the VC – no stamp available – but an interesting stop. We also took the self guided power house tour and walked part way up the Ladder Falls trail behind the power house.

JD Ross, the man who envisioned the Skagit river dams for bringing power to Seattle, turned the area around the power house into a garden spot after its completion in 1924. He would bring influential friends and businessmen from Seattle to the dam to impress them with the beauty of the area. He convinced many that the three dam system to bring low cost power to Seattle was a worthwhile venture. It must have worked because the Ross and Diablo dams were subsequently built upstream from the Gorge dam, and all are owned by Seattle City Light.

Fred "driving" the old #6 steam engine
from the Seattle City Light RR.

There are waterfalls of all sizes about everywhere along the North Cascades highway, and we have been enjoying them.

We got back to camp around 3:30 and just relaxed and read for the rest of the day. The day was clear and warm, with a light breeze. You couldn’t ask for much better.

We might go to the Ranger talk at the ampitheater tonight. It is about bats. There is also a light show at Ladder Falls after the batty program, but we probably won’t go to that. That would be after our bedtime!