North Cascades

Four day weekend and Dave had to work on Friday and Saturday and a few hours on Sunday.. as soon as he was done Sunday we packed a picnic dinner and headed out. We decided to head up highway 20 and check out some camp sites. We love the drive and it was such a beautiful day. Found a few great camping places and a few not so great... saw a lot of mountains. Went on a couple small hikes to some awesome lookouts and just had a wonderful relaxing day.

Followed the Skagit river up highway 20 in the North Cascades

The lookout from the Newhalem visitor center .. also checked out the camp ground here and Love it!

Spill way is empty... first time I have seen it with no water.. lots of huge rocks.

Diablo lake at the look out.

Watched the sun set behind the mountains over Diablo lake.

Camping on the North Cascade Highway

Some of the camping areas we checked out where not so nice.. there are some in Marblemount but not the kind we like.. they were mostly open fields sort of camping.. looked like you were camping in someones back yard. As we went further up we found some we really liked though.

Goodell creek is right before Newhalen and is very woodsy and nice.. there were some bigger motor homes in there... no reservations.. no flush toliets.. spots are a bit hilly.. right on the skagit river... more of a tenting sort of place.. but I like it for roughing it :) $10 a night

Newhalen creek is super nice.. just minute or two from goodell creek and on the way to the vistor center.. they have a couple of loops.. nice clean maintained place with lots of motor homes and they have flush toilets.. no power but really nice big spots. $12 a night ~ I am guessing you can reserve these as a lot had reserved signs on them. Photo of one of the back in spots.. nice and long and clean.

Colonial Creek, has camping on both sides of highway 20.. on the North side it is a bit more rustic with one loop.. pretty hilly sites... not really for bigger motor homes. South side of highway 20 has a nice boat launch and a lot of camping spots.. flush toilets... nice.. everything is just really nice. $12 a night

I believe most of these close down by the end of September... so I would be sure to call ahead to check on any of them. We will hopefully be spending a lot of time up there next spring and summer.. the hikes out of that area are amazing!

Here is a link for Camping in the area