Saturday, July 20, I rode 42 miles from the Canyon Creek Trailhead, where I finished the previous afternoon, to Marblemount, WA. Trudi brought me back to the trailhead early in the day, when temperatures were in the mid-sixties–perfect weather for biking. As you can see in the photo below, things were a bit smokier than the day before, but the air quality was tolerable.

Even though Trudi has been in the neighborhood recently, I continue to carry all of my fully loaded bike bags, just as I would need to do if she weren’t here.

Much of my route was in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area, which offers amazing views of the mountains of the North Cascades National Park, lakes, dams, streams, and waterfalls. I’m happy to share a sampling of those with you.

This is Panther Creek, which Wikipedia indicates was so named because the area was once the hunting ground of panthers. I am reminded of Ogden Nash’s helpful advice:

“Should you behold a panther crouch/Prepare to say Ouch/Or better yet, if called by a panther,/Don’t anther.”

This is Ross Lake, formed by the Ross Lake Dam across the Skagit River.

This is Ross Lake as I got closer and closer to it.

This is Ross Dam.

This is Diablo Lake, which was formed by the Diablo Dam across the Skagit. There are three major dams across the Skagit River: the Gorge Dam, Diablo Dam, and Ross Dam.

I passed through two tunnels on my way to Marblemount. The first one was very short.

The second was much longer and wasn’t lighted inside. I didn’t have a headlight and wasn’t able to see the road in front of me. There was a post by the side of the road about 50 feet from the tunnel informing me that I could push a button to turn on a warning light, which I did. As I got close to the tunnel, pulsing yellow lights lit up around a sign that indicated: “Bikes in tunnel while flashing/30 mph.” Very helpful, especially when I needed to slow down myself because of the limited visibility.

Here was one of the waterfalls along the way.

A sign along the route revealed some literary history involving the nearby Desolation Lookout, where Jack Kerouac and other members of the Beat Generation sought simplicity and solitude. Kerouac worked as a fire watcher during the summer of 1956 at Desolation Lookout, which continues to serve as a fire lookout staffed by the National Park Service.

There were several parking lots along the route which allowed people to stop and look at some of the things I was seeing but that you might miss if you were driving by at 60 mph. I met several people at these stops and will introduce you to a couple of them. This is Chris, who is originally from Eden Prairie, MN but who now lives in Portland, OR. He said that a number of people from Minnesota have migrated to the Pacific Northwest, and when he wears his Minnesota Twins cap, he will invariably encounter someone who will approvingly acknowledge his loyalties with “Go Twins!”

And this is Ben, who I’m guessing is in his late 20’s or early 30’s. He is just getting started on a cross-country bike trip using the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route I am on. Since he is going west to east, he started in Anacortes, WA, my endpoint. He is originally from Albuquerque, N.M. and is able to take the time for this trip right now because he is between jobs. We talked about the passes through the Cascades that he will be encountering in the coming days. Trudi took this photo of the two of us.

There wasn’t much in the way of populated areas on my way to Marblemount, but I did pass through Newhalem, WA (pop. 434) in late morning. Both Newhalem and Marblemount are on the Skagit River, shown below.

Today’s ride was generally downhill and seemed vastly easier than my rides over the big mountain passes. Traffic has been getting heavier on Hwy 20, though, and there have been a number of patches with a narrow or damaged shoulder requiring more focused vigilance along the way.