No Reservations for 4th of July Camping in the North Cascades

When: July 2016
Where: Blue Lake in the North Cascades
With: my partner
What: camping trip with a hike
Accompaniment: Water by Ra Ra Riot feat. Rostam

Usually*, Washington’s June is so cool and wet that we count 4th of July as the unofficial start of summer. Full of foolish hope, we headed up to the North Cascades without reservations for a weekend of camping. We’d successfully done so five years earlier — but every year, first-come-first-served sites fill up faster. (Nowadays, I wouldn’t bother trying to camp on a holiday weekend without reservations or going at least the Thursday before the weekend.)

We drove all the way up to Colonial Creek Campground, which has more than 100 sites: full. Next, we checked a few small non-reservable sites: taken. We consulted our camping book, trying to decide whether to continue east or head back the way we’d come. Though we’d arrived in early afternoon, after checking campground after campground it was nearing five o’clock, when the ranger station closed. Ten minutes before closing, we rushed in and pleaded for recommendations. The bored ranger circled two roads outside the park proper where dispersed camping was allowed. Her demeanor made clear it was hopeless.

After driving three hours just to reach the park — never mind packing up the car, taking Friday off work and hiring a cat sitter — we were determined to find somewhere to land. I was growing despondent when we turned down the first dirt road she’d recommended. We drove out the road, passing one Vanagon pulled off on a narrow stretch with a steep drop-off to the river, seeing nowhere suitable for camping. A sedan passed us going the other direction — no sites up ahead that he’d seen, either. “Does that ranger know anything about dispersed camping?” I asked angrily as we turned around. “I bet she’s never even been out this road.”

When we reached the Vanagon, my husband pulled in behind it. “Let’s check it out,” he urged. Maybe we couldn’t see something from the road. I was skeptical but desperate enough to try anything that wasn’t sleeping in the car in a day use parking lot. Been there, done that.

We scrambled down a slippery dirt path to the rocky sidechannel of the river. “It looks sandy over there,” he pointed out. We waded the ankle-deep water and crossed a long field of loose cobblestones to investigate: a large sandy beach tucked between an island of vegetation, the fast-flowing river, and a deep swimming hole of fresh water.

Perfect.

Well, besides lugging our gear down from the car.

The next day, we drove the twisting road through the North Cascades, pulling into the Blue Lake trailhead just before Washington Pass. Mosquitos buzzed us as we started down a boardwalk through a swampy patch. Snowdrifts lingered in the shade, worrying me about the higher elevations. But the trail was clear nearly up to the lake, with a last stretch of snow to cross before a lakeside overlook. The lake was covered in ice. In the shallows, it was cracking and melting away in spotty pools. The gaps exposed bright greenish water, so clear you could see the lakebed. Scraggly larches sprouted from the boulder where we stood — bright green now, but in just a few months they’d turn yellow and lose their needles.

Summer is so short in the mountains here, it’s easy to miss it. Sometimes, you’ve got to take the gamble.

* Giving you the hard side-eye, record-breaking heat wave 😡