Archives for 2024

PaulB

The Balloon-Juice folks have journeyed with me as I traversed the best that Washington state has to offer, with prior submissions from visits to Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, and, two years ago, to the Olympic Peninsula and the Olympic National Park. Beginning today, I’d like to invite you to join me as I embark on “Washington’s Ultimate Road Trip,” the Cascade Loop.

As far as I can tell, the Cascade Loop is mostly a marketing thing, created to encourage people to take just these kinds of road trips (the western part of the Loop isn’t even in the Cascades). The Loop is now a National Scenic Byway, as well as a Washington State Scenic and Recreational Highway, a 440-mile trip, not counting side trips. There is a map at the link above, if you’re curious about the specific locations on the loop. Roughly speaking, the loop begins in the southwest corner in Mukilteo, heads east from there to Wenatchee, north to Winthrop, west to Anacortes, then south through Whidbey Island, and the Whidbey Island Ferry, back to Mukilteo.

I skipped the Mukilteo section of the Loop, since I’ve been there, done that, so my trip really began just west of Snohomish. This first day of the trip consisted of just two locations: Wallace Falls State Park and Bridal Veil Falls. Both of these consisted of moderate-difficulty 4.5 mile roundtrip hikes.

Honestly, I probably shouldn’t have done both of them in one day, given my age and general physical condition. I got fooled by the brochure, which insisted that the trail to Bridal Veil Falls, the second hike, was an “easy half-mile hike.” What they neglected to mention, and what I failed to notice, is that the so-called easy hike was a spur off of a 1.8 mile moderate difficulty trail (3.5 miles round trip), and that a portion of the trail had been damaged by a rock slide. By the time I realized all of this, I was pretty well committed, as well as being stubborn, so I stuck it out.

One thing I noticed on both hikes was that a substantial number of my fellow hikers had brought their dogs along on the hike. For the most part, they were well-behaved when I met them, and it brought a smile to my face on more than one occasion seeing their excitement as they wandered back and forth, sniffing everything they could find.

All of these pictures were taken with a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra phone, with the only post-processing some minor clipping, plus shrinking the pictures so that they would more easily fit on the BJ website. You can see full-size versions of today’s photos here.

On The Road – PaulB – The Cascade Loop, Part 1Post + Comments (16)

Wallace Falls State ParkMay 17, 2024

The first five photos in today’s entry are of the Wallace River. The river has a Lower Falls, a Middle Falls, and an Upper Falls. This is a picture of the Wallace River cascading over the rocks.