Recently I did a trip with friends Jim and Lisa to Copper Ridge in North Cascades National Park in Washington. They had wanted to hike this beautiful ridge last year when they were in the area doing part of the Wonderland Trail, but due to all the smoke from last year's forest fires they had to cancel.
This year was a different story and I was lucky that they invited me along to take another crack at it. The weather this year had been somewhat more wet than usual, although it broke crystal clear for the first couple of days, and even on the third day the minimal amount of rain was welcome and provided a nice contrast with the very warm temps the first couple of days. As we anticipated, the wildflowers were right around peak.
The first night we camped at Boundary Camp, then Copper Lake, Indian Creek and finally Boundary Camp again. Jim and Lisa are tent campers, but I was using my hammock and I must say that it takes a bit of creativity to hang at Boundary Camp because the trees in the official camping area are rather small, and at Copper Lake the trees are plenty large but the spaces were rather tight... I use a 10ft hammock and am glad for that because it barely fit! Indian Creek was better with more, and easier, hanging options.
There were a few mosquitoes at Copper Lake but it was cooler and so we were wearing jackets and had head nets, so I needed only a bit of Deet on my hands. Needed a little Deet at Boundary Camp but at Indian Creek I didn't need any, which was rather curious since it was nearest to water and general dampness.
Instead of a blow-by-blow description I'll just post some photos and if anyone has specific questions I'll be happy to address them.
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