— One of three national parks we visited in 2011, North Cascades National Park was full of surprises. The particular hike featured on the photo above was the Diablo Lake trail. Created by the Diablo Dam, the lake exhibits this magnificent deep turquoise color due to floating particles of glacial rock flour that are carried into the lake from surrounding glaciers grinding rocks into that fine powder. The lake is 1,201 feet (366 m) above sea level. Besides the turquoise color, another particular thing to know about this lake is that its name rhymes with “dye.” This hike was memorable for us for two main reasons. First, we did the entire 3.8-mile hike by ourselves. We never ran into a single other hiker. Second, when we returned to the parking lot, we heard this loud thunderous noise. As we looked up, we saw a large section of the mountain side collapsing. Several rocks were coming down. That presented no danger to us because it happened on an area opposite from the trail. Nevertheless, it was a sight to behold.
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