Lake Ann from Heather Pass

Early last October we were on our way home from eastern Washington and decided to hike the Maple Pass loop in the North Cascades to see the larches in their autumn color. We soon discovered that we had to contend with an early snowfall and by the time we reached Heather Pass we were hiking in several feet of snow. Since we did not have our snowshoes along we decided to turn back. This photo was taken not far from the top of Heather Pass, about two and half miles into the hike and looks back down the valley through which we had hiked. The lake below is Lake Ann, with Rainy Lake over the top of the pass and not visible in this picture. We decided, though, that this was a hike we had to do again, perhaps sometime this fall, with or without snowshoes.