Washington has three National Parks: Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic. We traversed the first two in the span of three days, squeezing a visit to see family in Olympia in between.
The North Cascades Park has some dazzling hiking trails, but the view from the North Cascades Highway (state route 20) is also pretty spectacular, as you can see. Highway 20 runs in and out of the park, so these locations are either in the park or on its outskirts, but they are representative of the beautiful scenery of the park itself. This was mostly a travel day, so there are fewer pictures than I normally post.
Diablo Lake, shown here, has a dazzling turquoise color. Glaciers grind off portions of rock, which are carried by streams into the reservoir. This “glacial flour” remains suspended in the water, and gives it a peculiar color and opaque quality. It is very striking and worth seeing. It reminds me of Lake Louise in Canada.
