Rainy Lake Trail | Road Trippin', Watkins Style

Jacks up in Entiat, it was onward and upward, northbound. Next up on our temporary home list was the Osooyos Lake Veteran’s Memorial Park in the massive urban development of Oroville, WA (ahem, that would be about as sarcastic a description as can be made). The lake is fairly large and is situated as such that 5 miles north from our “home” at the park is the Canadian/U.S. border and the lake continues up into Canada. The park was not real big, but was a big time family campout location, being situated lakeside, and nearly filled up during our stay. I’m sure that it being the start of the Memorial Day weekend had something to do with the fill up, but one thing struck me as a little strange. A lot of the campers brought their boats with them, all shapes and sizes. But during our whole stay we saw very few boats on the water, and then only one or two small fishing motorboats. That was a real poser…

Our home at Osooyos Lake Veteran’s Memorial Park

The old town area of Molson caught our interest, so we ventured the several miles to take a gander. It was an old mining town in days of yore which succumbed to the follies of a good ol’ property dispute. It seemed a landowner claimed Molson was on his homestead property, so everyone abandoned ship and moved the “town” down the road a half-mile away. The old equipment and buildings are still scattered on the original site, I liken it to a very small version of the Bodie ghost town back in Kalifornia. You can walk amongst the “stuff” and even enter the buildings to get an upclose and personal experience.

We took a short touring drive out to Blue Lake and Wannacut Lake. Both lakes were pretty isolated but appeared to be fishing type lakes vs. water toy lakes. Nice views and a few critters later it was back to town. One other little excursion took us up the mountain to view a property in our ever-continuing search for a possible landing zone. It seems what is called the 9 Mile Ranch is in process of being chunked up and sold in 20 acre pieces and we found one with a house and barn already built on it. It certainly had nice valley views, but it just didn’t scream at us.

House for sale +20 acres. Hard views to handle…

As we casually headed toward and into the North Cascades N.P., our new home became the Winthrop/N. Cascade National Park KOA. This was a terrible park as far as KOAs go; not much room upon entering the driveway into a skinny choke-point at the check-in office, interior roads very skinny dirt/gravel with tight turns and trees overgrown creating top-side hazards for the MH roof, and thick tree cover which makes it hard to navigate into the sites and denies satellite/Starlink connection. The kicker was the WAY overboard excessively high nightly fees for this KOA. Yes, it was still Memorial Day weekend, and yes, there were non-stop things for the kids to enjoy. But for $110/night I would expect more of a resort type of park, a little more “refined” maybe. The prices did not stop the masses though, the park was packed, and hundreds of little “speed bumps”, I mean kids, shooting wildly out of control from behind cars and tents on bicycles (OK, stop it, that was a joke! I take my “speed bumps” seriously!)

Home at the Winthrop/N. Cascade N.P. KOA (photo after the hordes departed!)

The Hwy. 20 path through the Northern Cascade mountains seems to be popular with the hiking crowd, judging by all the hiking trails scattered throughout the National Park area. We thought we would make use of some of the trails, so our first outing was to find the trailhead to Rainy Lake, about 40 miles from Winthrop. We headed out (and up!) early one fine, clear morning. As far as the “and up!” goes, we climbed Hwy. 20 up and past the Washington Pass. The summit, Jeanne had learned, is the highest one in the Cascades at 5,477’. We left Winthrop with it’s expected 80 degree temps and upon arrival at the trailhead, we were about 4 miles west of Washington Pass, temperatures in the low 40’s, and the snow was so thick the road guys had not plowed/cleared the trailhead parking areas yet. We got out and got geared up for a hike anyway…until I found a sign near what I suppose might have been the trailhead (covered with snow). The sign warned of the dangers of a hike in the snow, advising wanderers such as we to carry our ice axes, pick axes, spiked shoes, snow shoes, skis, etc. It also mentioned we should be prepared to “self-rescue”. Well, mammy & pappy didn’t raise no fool and common sense is a terrible thing to waste. We did the ol’ “NASA, abort mission!” and resolved this adventure to being a driving tour. The views in the area were actually pretty spectacular, water leaking out of mountains everywhere and the views from the Washington Pass Overlook were awe inspiring.

After our return to base from the above unsuccessful mission, we regrouped and settled on a short hike closer to home. There is a suspension bridge over the Methow River near Mazama we chose to hike to, only about a mile and a half round trip and extremely easy & flat. Like all the trails and trailheads we have seen here in this area, the Tawlks Foster Suspension Bridge trail is popular with numerous families hiking and biking. It didn’t have that “Wow!” factor for us, but it is spanning the Methow River for a pleasant view.

A little local research and we settled on another hike to Falls Creek Falls, just a short 14 miles outside of Winthrop. Falls Creek feeds into the Chewuch River and there is a partially paved trail up the canyon, mostly alongside the creek, until it turns to dirt and veers away from the water, making some long sweeping switchbacks to gradually gain the altitude necessary to reach the top of the falls. “Falls” is plural; there are several falls along the creek. For the less than avid hikers there is good news – the first and most spectacular waterfall jumps up on you at about the 1/4 mile mark and is easily arrived at. After that, you can scale some short, steep switchbacks straight up the hill or take the long gradual gain switchbacks to see the other falls. Falls Creek Falls is not a gargantuan of a waterfall, but there was a lot of water raging down the mountain and it is still stunning as far as waterfalls go.

Before pulling our jacks we had to take one last stroll, this time a touristy jaunt around the town of Winthrop. It is a very small town with a kind of old West vibe, and it certainly was nicer strolling after all the holiday craziness had gone. We even stopped by to see another suspension bridge in the middle of town, the Spring Creek Bridge. The people in these parts of Washington sure like their suspension bridges…

Well, that concludes another episode of “Recreational Wanderers”. Until next post…

Voyageurs National Park was our next tourism destination. We broke the drive up and did a couple of nights at the Jackpot Junction Casino in Morton, MN. While there we found a couple of points of interest to see. The Birch Coulee Battlefield was a small area on the outskirts of Morton. It is touted as one of the bloodiest battles of the U.S.-Dakota War even though it was only a day and a half battle back in 1862. That, and there were only about 20 men killed during that skirmish. Horses fared worse, they had about 90 casualties. The battlefield was a short walking circular path through the field, with little history lessons posted here and there. They also had small concrete markers with footprints on them to designate the standing location of combatants, pointing out into the field to small white marker posts which designated the locations of enemy fighters. This battle was pretty much a close quarters type of battle as evidenced by the distances depicted, and it easily demonstrated the ill-fated logic of the U.S. force on choosing such an open, unprotected location to set up camp.

The other point of interest was Ramsey Falls on Ramsey Creek in the town of Redwood Falls. This was an easy drive-to with no hiking required. There is a nice viewing platform at the parking area, and if you want a closer look you can do a tiny bit of rock scrambling to arrive at the top of the falls.

The view of the falls from the observation platform/parking area

Onward and upward, again, we lucked out and I think we found the absolute last available RV site in the entire Great Lakes area. It just happened to be Arnold’s Campground and RV Park in International Falls, MN. Now, the town of Int’l Falls is nothing to write home about, it is a run down small town right on the Canadian border. In fact, if the U.S. side residents need to hit a Walmart or a Safeway, the only ones in the area are across the Rainy River in Fort Francis, on the Canadian side. And, according to signs posted around Rainy Lake, all non-essential cross-border traffic is prohibited. So there’s that…

I have to say, we were seriously underwhelmed by Voyageurs National Park. Even the rangers say it is not a real popular park in the Nat’l Park system. We hit the 3 visitor’s centers at Rainy Lake, Kabetogama Lake, and at Ash Creek. They are not open every day, even during this, the peak season, which tells you a little something about their popularity. We were in serious lake country (“Land of 10,000 Lakes, duh!) but driving around and through the area the scenery is mostly thick, green trees. Even the “lake view” trail near the Ash Creek Visitor’s Center provides you with a semi-obstructed (trees) view of water. We made one attempt at night viewing, trying to catch sight of the Aurora Borealis from the Rainy Lake Visitor’s Center, but only managed to fight the mosquitos until midnight. We spoke to a ranger about the lights on another day and he mentioned they are best seen in colder weather, more often during Spring and Fall. Such is our luck…

For our last hurrah at Voyageur’s N.P. we broke out the bicycles for a nice leisurely ride on the Rainy Lake Trail. That trail starts near the International Falls Chamber of Commerce in town and pretty much follows both Hwy. 11 and the Rainy River to the Rainy Lake Visitor’s Center. The trail weaves it’s way off and onto Hwy. 11 on it’s 15 mile stretch to the visitor’s center and is paved the whole way. You have to be ever vigilant due to the large number of BIG red deer roaming the area, particularly the nearer you get to the visitor’s center. There are not a lot of sights to see along the way, again you travel through thick stands of trees. But we got our 30 miles in and it was a pretty good workout during the last leg of the trail heading to the visitor’s center.