Blue Lake / Highway 20

We’d like to thank all those who participated in our recent online poll. IDAHO WON! By a near margin that has determined our course through eastern Washington and Idaho for the next week. We headed out early Monday morning from Seattle with Winthrop, WA and the Chewuch River as our destination. We traveled along scenic Highway 20, which was a destination in itself… a hike on wheels. Rivers, dams, mountains, forest. Very pretty. We got to Blue Lake about 20 miles outside of Winthrop and did a hike my aunt had recommended. We were worried about snow, but it appeared to be long thawed and it was a great hike. 2 miles in and 2 miles out with a beautiful reflecting lake, clear blue with snow capped mountains around the edge. There were several cars pulling into the parking lot about the same time as us, which was not good because it seemed we’d have company the whole way up. This car pulled up next to us with 2 couples and a massive black lab. Nice dog, terrible owner. This woman was shrieking for “Jack” to come, sit, stay, goooood boy, baby this and baby that. Just putting on a show for the whole parking lot, unabashedly displaying her unhealthy affection for this dog. (Not that Bob and I can talk, but we try to keep it private). It was unfortunate and needed to be avoided. So, the only solution was to get out in front. We did the trail in record time; we had 30 minutes to ourselves at the top and it was just lovely. As we descended down the first switchback, we were too high on life and the good fortune of being at Blue Lake on a Monday morning to care about the high up echoes of “Jaaaaaaaack!”. When we got back to the car we had some lunch and set our packs and whatnot on the hitch. Well, after lunch we drove off leaving everything on the back. Lord above! We realized this about a mile down the road and our packs were still sitting back there (shocking), but we lost my hat and shirt. As the picture would indicate we did salvage the shirt and hat in the middle of the road and it was no worse for the wear. After crisis averted, we continued on to Winthrop where we stocked up on food supplies and headed north up the Chewuch River Rd. We set up camp at a small, uncrowded site about 15 miles up (Chewuch Campground) and we plan to stay for 3 nights.