Beaver Lake — Saturday, Apr. 8, 2017

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Our day was spent roaming the Darrington area visiting a few former fire lookouts. The trail 783.1 (which split off of trail #783 when a river bank collapsed) took us to an old cedar which was used as a crow's nest. This cedar's crown has long since broken off but it remains very large. Spikes adorn one side of this former lookout that the worker would use to ascend to work. After satisfying our needs for fire lookouts we visited the other half of this trail (#783). It was muddy but overall quite fun. We saw significant beaver activity, wood ducks, and evidence of deer. A few spring flowers, trilium, bleeding heart, and skunk cabbage presented themselves. As always it was fun to see the efforts of humans upon the landscape. As usual, nature was having the last laugh:)