Going Losting VIII

Are you tired of our Going Losting posts yet?!

Well, too bad, here's another. :-)

This time we went up the Entiat River Canyon until we got to the North Fork Campground. We actually went past this campground the first time, but came back to it because it looked like it had the most private sites. Boy are we glad we did! Our site was 1.) Right smack on the river, see tent picture below for proof, and 2.) private enough that we didn't have to use the nasty bathrooms. Peeing in the woods is much better than using nasty outhouses, in my humble opinion. So, anyway, we set up camp Friday night, and had a blast. It was a cold night--we all ended up snuggled up in one corner of the tent, but it made for a good time. :-)

Breakfast by the fire with goofy girls...

Morning sunshine through the trees...

Jammied girls getting wood for the fire...

The Entiat River...

Gorgeous flowers hanging on the river bank...

After that we decided to see if Shady Pass was ummm... passable yet. Three weeks ago we tried, and it was still snowy, so we were unable to get through. It was BONE DRY this time, so were were able to make it all the way through... it was fun!

Our first look at Lake Chelan from the Entiat direction...

We took a few detours along the way to see the sites in these hills... its so fun to discover little treasures along the way... One was this... Big Hill Hut, it's called. It looked like a total party spot, and was a little creepy with the empty bunks, bottles, and random leavings from years of snowmobile partiers coming through...

Are they hugging, or choking?! One is never sure.

A family picture, with the camera on a timer, and 4 interconnected and balanced rocks to keep it straight and still. :-)

I should say that this is not a drive anyone who has any fear of heights should ever take. FYI. For pretty much the whole thing, the road has a steep cliff on one side or the other.

At one point the road wound through trees... in a period of a mile, maybe two, we went through burnt trees, full lush forest, and trees that were halfway between burnt and alive, it was beautiful.

And then we came to Junior Campground. This campground has what appears to be a fire lookout that was burnt down... we went and stood in that spot, and wow. Talk about on top of the world. If one has vertigo, one should not stand here... Even one who does not have vertigo can feel as though they have vertigo standing in this spot. Especially when the only thing standing between you and a plummeting rocky death is weird cracked rubber robes, and the bees and bugs are flying around you like fighter jets. And wind that feels like it could pick you up and carry you away. Being up there with one agile but fearless child and one accident prone child was a little stressful.

Frank hiked out to one of the outcroppings that was lower, but further out than the lookout. I am taking his picture here from the lookout.

Here's a video showing the view all the way around from the lookout. I edited it very quickly to cover up my freak-out nagging of my kids to stay away from the edge, so turn the volume down... I'm not sure the song I picked is much better. That being said, I edited it in approximately 5 minutes, so that's what you get. Sadly, I have bathrooms to clean, and laundry to fold today. :-)

Purple and orange flowers that were ALL OVER these hills, the colors just pop together. I can hear Aunt Dhasa in my head talking about color wheels, and secondary and tertiary colors, etc., so I know why God put these colors together on this hill... they complement each other perfectly. :-) As a side note, I should also say that the butterflies we encountered on this trip were really spectacular. I couldn't get clear pictures of any of them unfortunately, but they really liked Rovey, and we had brilliantly beautiful butterflies flying along side us here and there throughout the day, it was really fun. A sea of purple...

After we made it down to Lake Chelan, and then home...

Thanks for letting us share our lovely Pacific NW weekend camping trip with you! Have a great week!