Maybe not. But this picture makes me think that I’m going to walk right off the edge. That’s strange since I can think of at least one other place that was actually on the edge of a cliff. I’m sure that in the pictured scene the trail simply turned around a bend. But how would I know since I was busy looking at views that went on for days?

Oh man, were the views ever good. Peaks everywhere. Many flowers. One spot up above Rainy Lake had so many flowers that I felt it was only behind Mount Rainier’s Paradise and Glacier’s Logan Pass in spectacular wildflower glory.

I’ve been wanting to start a trip blog without needing to mention that my knees or back are a problem. And so far I can say that’s true. For several years I’ve done my best to avoid hikes with any significant amount of elevation gain. To be more specific, I avoided them like the plague. There has been an outbreak of good health this spring. I’ve been hiking trails that involve elevation gain, and have been doing quite well. I’ll need for that to continue considering that the majority of the North Cascades trails climb (and even worse is descending).

Even though most people seem to think that hiking the Maple Pass loop in a counter-clockwise direction is best, I chose to be a contrarian. So we ascended the more steep side of the loop. In my opinion this is the way to go because steep descents are very hard on old knees.

Washington has been experiencing some very bad wildfires. I didn’t notice any smoke when we were at the Washington Pass. I had been expecting that I would. A column of smoke was definitely noticeable from Maple Pass.

I previously mentioned that while I was planning this trip I was eagerly anticipating expansive views of mountains and valleys. Maple Pass was one of the hikes I was most looking forward to. Now that I’ve been there, I have to say that it certainly did not disappoint.