The North Cascades National Park Service Complex includes North Cascades National Park and Ross Lake and Lake Chelan National Recreation Areas. North Cascades National Park contains some of America's most beautiful scenery -- jagged peaks, deep valleys, cascading waterfalls and over 300 glaciers -- within its 505,000 acres (202,000 hectares). Ross Lake National Recreation Area (118,000 acres, 47,200 hectares) is the corridor for scenic Washington State Route 20, the North Cascades Highway, and includes three reservoirs: 12,000-acre (4,800-hectare) Ross Lake, 910-acre (364-hectare) Diablo Lake, and 210-acre (84-hectare) Gorge Lake -- water gateways to more remote areas. Lake Chelan National Recreation Area (62,000 acres, 24,800 hectares) rests in a glacially carved trough in the Cascades Range. Lake Chelan is one of the nation's deepest, reaching a depth of 1,500 feet (450 meters). It offers boating, fishing, and lakeshore camping. The average width is less than two miles (3.2 kilometers), but Lake Chelan extends 50 miles (83 kilometers) into the Cascade Mountains. The lake's northernmost four miles (6.4 kilometers) are in the National Recreation Area, including the remote community of Stehekin and the Stehekin River Valley.

Desolation Peak, Mount Fury, Jagged Ridge, Mount Terror — the names on the map strongly hint at the character of the North Cascades National Park Complex. This is the largest and most rugged alpine wilderness in the contiguous United States, with scores of 8,000-foot peaks, upwards of 400 glaciers, virgin Doug-fir and western red-cedar forests, and wildlife that includes gray wolves and grizzlies.

There is so much to explore in there, choosing is difficult. We elected to take a trip around Lake Ann.

We had a splendid day, snowy passes, extensive flora and inquisitive marmots.

Link to   North Cascades National Park