A Hike in the North Cascades

I hiked a nice trail in the North Cascades yesterday to the most pristine mountain lake imaginable - Blue Lake. The trailhead is just east of Washington Pass near Liberty Bell Mountain, one of the major landmarks on the North Cascades Highway. The trail is only a couple of miles long with 1100 feet of elevation gain and, after a 3 hour drive to get there, you might wonder if the trip would be worthwhile. Well... it would be.
The trail winds upward through the deep dark forest, and past an area of downed trees apparently caused by a winter avalanche. Before you know it, you arrive at the lake which appears to be in a glacial cirque with huge rock walls on the south end. During most of the hike a light snow was falling, as the weather alternated between cloudy and the occasional sun break. The scenery was dazzling with a light dusting of snow on the rocks and trees at the higher elevations and a clearly visible demarcation between the snow level and below.
One of the scenic attractions this time of year is the fall color which, while not approaching the magnificence of October in New England, has a subtle charm of its own. Blue Lake is known for the multitude of Subalpine Larches nearby which are fir trees but, unintuitively, are deciduous and change color in the Fall. They are not quite at their peak colorwise right now, but there were quite a few that were bright yellow.
Since the hike was not that long, we did a second one, a one-mile round trip to a nearby larger lake called Rainy Lake. It too is a glacial cirque but on a larger scale than Blue Lake. Since the snow was falling faster, we decided to call it a day and headed home.
My hiking companions (this was a Mountaineers hike) included the usual assortment of middle-aged women and also a young fellah from Ohio who graduated from college this spring with no immediate job prospects. He took a road trip this summer, discovered Western Washington, and decided he had to live here. So he found a place on Capitol Hill and looks for employment as a civil engineer. A dicey plan but, I suppose, admirable in its way. Of course, he may rethink his decision come March after 4+ months of clouds and rain.
On a somewhat related note: the NY Times today had a major article in the Travel section about the WonderLand Trail that circumnavigates Mt Rainier. This summer I hiked the Summerland part of the trail the author describes! I feel so validated.