Beaver Lake — Thursday, Jul. 21, 2016

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

This is a great toddler hike: shaded, flat, smooth tread, freshly cleared (thank you WASU!), easy drive on paved road only. Beaver "lake" is really a marsh. Hundreds of tadpoles swimming under the bridge at the "lake" were super fun to watch. Easy 4ft climb (with assistance) down to the sandbar at the end of the trail, but not much shade down there so we didn't linger on this hot muggy day. There are some nettles but we avoided them easily. Biting flues were bad but didn't seem to phase my 2yo. Only saw one other family on the trail on a Thursday. Berries on the trail are just finishing up.