Grand Coulee, North Cascades NP, Puget Sound (STR-2022-15)

Sunday, 3 July

Uncharacteristically, Sprinty now has confirmed reservations for the next 30 days. While Sprinty prefers to wing it, and has been pretty successful using that approach, the popularity of camping in Washington and Oregon had us making reservations further ahead than usual.

The morning after the mini-squall was very pleasant, with the forecasted rain pushed off to later in the day. We relaxed in the campground, and about 11am, the rain moved in - we are glad we rescheduled golf as our planned round this morning would have been truncated by the weather. The day had intermittent rain, followed by sunshine making for dramatic views of Lake Roosevelt.

Monday, 4 July

With rain forecast, we did not have much hope of playing golf. A leisurely start to the day, crossing more arid terrain, arriving back at the Columbia River at Bridgeport, WA. We stopped at the Chief Joseph Dam overlook.  Chief Joseph Dam is named for the renowned leader of the Naz Perce Tribe's Wallawa Band. Chief Joseph Dam is the second largest electricity-producing dam in the United States and the nation's longest straight-line Powerhouse.

Chief Joseph Dam

Chief Joseph Dam has 27 main unit penstocks - one to deliver water to each generator. Its 27 turbines can generate up to a $1 million worth of power a day, enough to serve the Seattle metropolitan area. The unique "L shape allows the powerhouse to take maximum advantage of the river's flow.

We took the back way from Bridgeport to Brewster and were rewarded by seeing dozens of chainsaw art carved in former trees lining the streets.

A bright spot in an otherwise economically depressing town. We followed the Methow River from Pateros, WA to Winthrop on the watch for flooded roads due to the flood warnings for the area.

When we got to the Bear Creek Golf Course, a nine-hole course in Winthrop, WA, the rain forecast was better. We decided to pay for 9 holes, and if the weather forecast improved, we would play the second nine. We both had a mix of good shots and oops shots. Just as we were finishing, the sky got dark, we heard thunder and saw lightning just over the hill. So we called it a day.

Our campsite for the night is at Pearrygin Lake State Park.

Tuesday, 5 July

We awoke to a beautiful Spring-like day - sun shining, cool, crisp morning. We continued up the Methow Valley, which as part of the North Cascade Scenic drive, was gorgeous. Unfortunately, we could not find a safe place to stop for the best pictures to share. As we turned towards North Cascades National Park, we officially entered the North Cascades Scenic Highway.

The scenery was picturesque, with craggy rock peaks, snow covered mountains, tall trees and beautiful blue skies.

Our first planned stop was the Washington Pass Observation Site at elevation 5,400 feet. The view was magnificent.

The interpretive signs explained that the valley was sculptured by glacial ice.

As we drove along the Highway, we saw numerous waterfalls right by the road. Most had no place to stop.  This one did.

Our next planned stop was Ross Lake Overlook. The valley that contains Ross Lake was carved by glaciers.

Ross Lake today is man-made as three dams were built on the Skagit River.

Ross Lake

We continued westerly stopping at the Ross Dam Resort and Trailhead parking area. We walked back up the highway to hike the 2.4-mile Happy Creek Falls hike. The trail started along Happy Creek.

The trail climbed about 600 feet in elevation to Happy Creek Falls.

Our next stop was Diablo Lake Overlook. There we learned that the Thunder Creek watershed has the largest concentration of glaciers in the lower 48 states.

Diablo Lake

Diablo Lake

We stopped at Gorge Creek Falls to take the short gorge hike. The Gorge Creek Falls were also impressive.

Gorge Creek Falls

In Newhalem, WA, we stopped at the Skagit Information Center, which was mostly a gift shop. The Skagit General Store across the street was closed due to staffing shortages. Our final stop of the day was the North Cascades Visitor Center in Newhalem.

Sprinty's campsite tonight is Newhalem Creek Campground in North Cascades National Park. One of only two National Park Campgrounds in North Cascades National Park with cell service.

Wednesday, 6 July

After rain off and on all night, we woke up to clearing skies. We decided take a side trip to try and get a view of Mount Baker from Baker Lake, with fingers crossed the cloud cover would cooperate. A pleasant drive, but the cloud cover obscured the view. We patiently waited for awhile to get a good view.

We continued on to Burlington, WA to pick up an Amazon package at an Amazon locker. What a great option for wanderers like Sprinty.

Our destination for the day was Deception Pass State Park. Recommended activities on the park website included renting kayaks (only rent by the day, not hour), doing a kayak tour, or doing a jet boat tour. We opted for the jet boat tour.

First stop was Anacortes, WA, to check in for a jet boat tour with Deception Pass Tours. After checkin at the store, we made our way to the boat dock in Cornet Bay in Deception Pass State Park.

The boat was a catamaran style, New Zealand designed, open air jet drive boat.

The boat boarded us promptly at our 12 noon tour time and headed out Deception Pass. In 1792, English explorer George Vancouver and his navigator, Joseph Whidbey, named the area "Deception Pass" because the two thought that Whidbey Island was a peninsula and that the pass was an entrance to a bay. They felt deceived when they learned that was not the case. The name stuck.

Deception Pass bridge is 87 years old and is 180 feet above the water.

The current running through Deception Pass can reach speeds up to 10 miles an hour, some of the fastest moving water in Puget Sound. Captain Jerad and Isadora took us out to see harbor seals,

a pair of Bald Eagles,

and harbor porpoises. We had a splendid day to be on the water - sunny and smooth water conditions.

Our campsite for the night is at Deception Pass State Park. Deception Pass just celebrated its 100 year anniversary and is Washington's most-visited state park. Sprinty had a nice back-in site amongst the towering old growth trees.

Thursday, 7 July

A laid back day. Our destination for the day was only an hour away, a golf course that is a Harvest Host. After picking up groceries and an errand, we arrived at the Gleneagle Golf Course in Arlington, WA about 11:30. We knew from the on-line tee times that the tee sheet was wide open, so we arrived without a tee time. After checking in with the Pro for our overnight parking arrangement, we headed out to play golf.

Gleneagle Golf Course is a nice course, deceivingly devious in that the course is very tight, and lined with homes and trees along most of the fairways. It rewards precision, and penalizes even the slightest wayward golf shot. Darrell contributed several balls to gosh-knows-where as precision off the tee box was hit-and-miss for him. Kris, on the other hand, kept it straight (as usual), but struggled with distance and putting. About hole 14, we bumped into the single in front of us, who was waiting on groups in front of him. He invited us to join him. Roy was a local resident and a delight to play with. He also said that the pretty sunny weather today was unusual. They have a saying around here that summer falls on the 5th of July.

A benefit to Harvest Host is that once our round was done, we did not have to go anywhere. And they had a nice snack bar, so we enjoyed a take-out dinner there as well.

Friday, 8 July

A fairly peaceful night last night, although it seemed about one in ten cars passing the golf course had modified exhausts, making them quite noticeable.

Our first activity was to visit Snoqualmie Falls. Snoqualmie Falls is a 268-foot located east of Seattle on the Snoqualmie River between Snoqualmie and Fall City, Washington. It is one of Washington's most popular scenic attractions and is known internationally for its appearance in the cult television series "Twin Peaks". More than 1.5 million visitors come to the Falls every year.

We parked at the Lower Falls parking area, which was almost empty, unlike the upper parking areas. The walk to the Lower Falls view point went by Plant 2.

Plant two is fed by two large 600 foot penstocks.

Snoqualmie Falls was beautiful.

We hiked up to the Upper Falls view point, a 0.7 mile trail with an average grade of over 10%. Along the way, we learned about nurse logs. Nurse logs are created when an old tree falls and begins to decay on the forest floor. The more interesting nurse logs to us were new trees growing on top of old stumps.

The view from the Upper Falls view point was also beautiful.

After returning down the hill to Sprinty, we drove to the Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Museum across the river. Recently reopened, we were the only ones there. The museum was free, and the docent was eager to give us an overview of the museum.

The museum focused on Charles Baker's original idea to build a power plant at Snoqualmie Falls. The Snoqualmie Falls Hydroelectric Project is Puget Sound Energy's oldest power-generating operation and the world's first completely underground power plant. More than a century after construction in 1899, the facility continues to produce clean, cost-effective electricity.

One of the displays was turbine-generator number 5. The cut-away of the turbine showed how the water flowed to spin the generator.

The story of the Snoqualmie Falls hydropower plant offers a unique look at industrial history, technology, and innovation. When engineer Charles H. Baker set out in the 1890s to build the world's first completely underground powerhouse beneath the falls, little had been settled about how best to generate electric power and transmit it over long distances. Rival inventors and companies fought to gain widespread acceptance for their competing ideas and to dominate the new and growing market for electrical equipment. Snoqualmie Falls served as a proving ground for these new methods and technologies. Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla's competing concepts for electrical generation were analyzed here, and the latest electrical generating equipment of both General Electric and Westinghouse have been tested and maintained here.

We then drove to the nearby city of Preston to ride the Preston-Snoqualmie trail which had been highly recommended in a Facebook post last year. The trail was paved and followed the old railroad bed for about 2.5 miles, where it turned away, likely where an old railroad trestle used to be. After crossing the road, there was a series of switchbacks which were not rideable. At the base of the switchbacks was a sign that the trail was closed ahead. Darrell volunteered to verifying the closure by walking up the switchbacks.

Unfortunately, a bridge on the trail was out at the 3-mile point, shortening our planned ride by half. Having enjoyed a downhill coast for most of the ride to the turn around, we had an incline for most of the way back.

After the bike ride, we made our way to Camp Murray, a Washington National Guard base located near Joint Base Lewis-McCord, between Olympia and Tacoma. Camp Murray operates a FamCamp right on the lake. And we enjoyed another beautiful day of unusually nice weather.

Saturday, 9 July

With a 7:32am tee time (the latest tee time we could get for a Saturday morning ), we were up before 6am. By arriving early for our tee time, we were rewarded with being able to start earlier than planned. Eagle's Pride Golf Course in DuPont, WA is the Joint Base Lewis-McCord golf course. As typical, it is very popular and reasonably priced. And today they had a tournament going on making it busier than usual. A nice course, better than most military golf courses we have played. At the turn, the starter had John join us. However bad we thought our morning of golf had been going on the first nine holes, John had an even worse morning.

Finishing early, we headed up US101 along the west side of Hood Canal to Port Angeles. In Sequim, we stopped for lunch, then headed for the Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles, WA to get information for planning our visit to Olympic National Park.