USA 2014 - North Cascades National Park

We travelled on from Seattle to Bellingham and met up with family, enjoying a short walk on the Sunday and a general rest day before the trip we had planned around Washington State.

Monday morning we set off 'en masse' first into the North Cascades National Park, another beautiful park in the huge continental United States:

More snow capped mountains:

Beautiful birds, like this inquisitive Gray Jay:

And a surprisingly tough short trail close to the Visitors Centre, replete with moss covered rocks and trees:

Being a bit later in the day but earlier in the season at this geography, fresh butterflies were about, looks a lot like the Comma from home:

The trail walked back to the car park via this mountain lakeside view:

Everywhere snow-melt waterfalls and rivers were full:

We saw Song Sparrows pretty much everywhere on this USA trip:

Our last stop of the trip was at a trail head, again with splendid views:

However the trails were still blocked and the path, due to the rapidly melting but still deep snow, too tricky to traverse:

More birds though, at a scenic overview stop it took a while to locate this White-crowned Sparrow:

We drove on to our hotel in Winthrop, called the Rio Vista.  They weren't joking:

Dinner was Mexican and like most Mexican food we don't cook at home, disagreed with us...