The North Cascades and Methow Valley

Last weekend we decided to take a trip east of here through the North Cascades and into the Methow Valley. We thought we would be enjoying autumn, but it ended up turning into winter! We also thought we would be focusing on birding, but it was the stunning landscapes that ended up stealing the show. Click on these pictures to view them larger, as the small versions don't quite do them justice!

First up was the drive along Highway 20 through North Cascades National Park. Glacial silt makes the color of the river an amazing turquoise!

The rain was falling but the roads were clear, with just a touch of snow at the top of the highest pass.

As we reached the Methow Valley, the sun came out in the late afternoon, and the colors were just amazing every direction you looked.

We hardly saw any birds at all in our first day of travels, but the deer were everywhere, as were the deer hunters. The deer over there as well as our deer on the island are all considered mule deer, but they're very different looking sub-species. The ones on the east side of the Cascades are much larger, more gray than brown, and even their morphology is different - their faces look like those of kangaroos!

On the second day, last Saturday, heavy rain started falling in the morning and turned into heavy snow as the day went on.

Despite the precipitation, the fall colors were spectacular, and really seemed to be at their peak.

Again, we hardly saw any birds, with the best sighting of the day being an American dipper.

By the time we went to bed, about 6-8" of snow had fallen. Overnight it turned to rain again, which compressed things a little bit, but there was still about 4" on the ground when we woke up. We were thankful we had the foresight to park our car at the bottom of the hill our cabin was situated on, or we might not have gotten out at all! It was such a beautiful sight to wake up to, however, though I kept having to remind myself this was October - amazing!

 I kept the camera on me all day and loved how this one turned out, which I took as we were walking down the hill to our car.

We headed into Winthrop for breakfast and afterwards had to take a walk along the Methow River, because the combination of fall colors and freshly fallen snow on an already stunning landscape was just breath-taking.

Back to pick up our things at the cabin, we again parked at the bottom of the hill, and a flock of birds caught our eye. We spent 45 minutes just walking the neighborhood road and finally saw more than a dozen bird species, including these two year birds that were definitely on our "hoped for" list for this trip!

Clark's nutcracker

Pygmy nuthatch

Unfortunately, even though the temperatures were warming, so much snow had fallen in the mountains that the highway we came over on was closed. This meant we had to drive the long way around, which was about twice the distance, but it was a route I had never driven before and the scenery was amazing! We just enjoyed it while driving but there's clearly plenty more new places to explore in Washington that will have to be featured on future blog posts when we get a chance to spend more time there!