Initially I was blind sided by Alpine daisies and Digitalis (foxglove) passing themselves off as wildflowers, much less the other fabulous scenery on the North Cascades Highway, and then they showed up again. I turned the tables on them though and made a pass. I don’t commonly make passes at bikers, but in this case, it was a must. I went around them. Bikers. The non-motorized kind.
I hit the brake often for resting bicyclers and continued searching, as I drove, for the perfect shot of wildflowers. My “kill two birds with one stone” mentality needed Ross Lake as a backdrop.
I ducked out of traffic last spring when I got off the ferry and dipped onto South Chuckanut Drive. For approximately twenty-five miles I was in another world with narrow, winding roads under a canopy of trees and there I wanted to stay. I passed under Highway 5 near exit 231, hung a right onto Burlington Boulevard and left on Avon Avenue (Highway 20), headed east, back to Colorado. No traffic, feeling a bit lost even with a map, another sixty miles and I slowed down even more. I was in the Cascades.
My mind filled with a flash of Concretia from the Flintstones movie along the way, when I passed through the town of Concrete. There is not much to it but history, folklore and a garish cement stack with bold lettering no one can miss. Concrete sits below Baker Dam and the base of Lake Shannon. The bikers were beginning to add up as I passed more and drove another twenty-six miles, through Marblemount, climbing, climbing. Gorge Dam and its long, narrow Gorge Lake, then Diablo Dam created more than fifty-years ago, and Diablo Lake, and further on and above, Ross Lake, all a sparkle of deep blue.
A labor of love goes into building our roadways so travelers like me can see the grandeur of our country. North Cascades Highway was completed in1972 after twelve years. Down one particularly steep grade around a switchback the view of Ross Lake takes your breath away. It spans into Canada for a mile and a half. Access is only available on the U.S. side.
Six passes on and around this route reach elevations between 4,000 to 5,500 feet. Sherman Pass is the highest, followed by North Cascade, Loup Loup, Wauconda, Rainy, and Washington. Passes are monitored for weather changes, but expect Loup Loup Pass to remain open year round. Like Ross Lake, Loup Loup Pass goes into Canada. From Marblemount to the end of the Cascades on this highway fifty-six more miles awaited as I continued to dodge bikers.
I recommend springtime travel, more tourists and travelers flock here in the summer. Mid-April through late June is the time to reduce distractions, catch craggy peaks, and glimpses of passing wildflowers, but watch the road, too. Bicycling is a springtime fancy that brings hoards of them into the mountains. They do what they do for more than exercise and health. Funding good causes comes into play.
Covered with Douglas fir, many of the surrounding peaks, such as Liberty Bell Mountain, Ruby Mountain, and Early Winters Spires tower in the high 7,000 elevation range. My first time in northwestern Washington and writings stating European images came to light. It is truly awesome. Bicyclists benefit from unobstructed views and find safety quickly even from wild drivers like myself.
The humid side of Washington was about to end when Dry Falls appeared. The eastern leg of northern Washington is dry, flat, agricultural land stirred up by high winds that creates “dust devils”. They are ultra-mini tornadoes that whip the land into some sort of shape. The foreboding look of three or more can be seen at any given time throwing a fit on the horizon blending yellow, brown dust with cerulean blue sky.
According to Washington State Parks, Dry Falls is one of North America’s geological wonders. Dry Falls is a cliff over three miles long and 400 foot high and was once ten times larger than Niagara. The Colombia River used to rush through here.
On one free-fall, in neutral down a steep, winding grade on the North Cascades Highway, there they were. And again, when I rounded a corner at Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park, and once again before I crossed into Idaho. Still headed eastbound on Highway 20 just leaving Coulee City headed to Spokane, on the flat, dry plains, faces of the bikers were becoming recognizable. I filled up every two hundred miles or so from Washington to Colorado and began to think my speedometer was broken because the same bikers were everywhere I was. Were they following me? My curiosity was piqued, because I just couldn’t shake them all the way through Washington.
I began to hallucinate seeing bikers in Montana, thinking, they were still following me. So, here it was ten o’clock at night, I pulled off at a state campground, plopped ten dollars in an envelope, pitched my tent, and dreamed of bikers.
This link covers a bike tour that lasted 71 days and 4,224 miles starting at Anacortes, Washington and ending in Bar Harbor, Maine.
http://www.skagitvalleyherald.com/articles/2004/06/10/recreation/rec01.prt
True account of one of the bikers who took the Washington route.
http://www.phred.org/~josh/bike/ncascade.html
Interested in biking across the entire United States contact:
http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/bikeaid/welcome.html
http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/_WebPages/statebicycletoursRW.html
Washington State only:
http://www.cascade.org/EandR/raw/index.cfm
http://www.redspoke.org/day1.htm
One to Mt. St. Helens?:
http://www.tourdeblast.com/
Linda’s writing appears in From Eulogy to Joy, Beischel, Xlibris Press, 2000, http://www.Bootsnall.com, http://www.scribequill.com, and http://www.ezinearticles.com She loves to travel, write, design, decorate, and paint. Linda studied writing through Long Ridge Writers Group in Connecticut, journalism at MSCD, Denver, and painting at the Art Academy in Loveland, Colorado, USA.