I'm posting this day trip mainly because it's rather unique owing to it's location and timing...
Rainy Lake is located in the North Cascades of Washington state, within the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and accessible from scenic Highway 20.
It's a mile in from the trailhead using a gently rising paved trail. It's a cirque lake nestled in the basin below Frisco Mountain. (The terrain up there is perfect for back-country Nordic downhill skiing but that's a different trip report.)
Here's why this day trip was unique...
I forget the exact year (1998?) but late one October we got a big snow storm that left a lot of snow on the ground but the WA DOT decided to keep Highway 20 open for a while longer. Hwy 20 shuts down in the winter, usually November to May because of the amount of snow and the avalanche danger so the window of opportunity for canoeing on Rainy Lake in the snow is small. Either there isn't much snow when it's still ice free or if there's plenty of snow it's iced over.
Here's my 1986 VW Jetta GLI with my Wenonah Odyssey tandem at the trailhead. As you can see, this isn't the kind of place you'd normally think of going canoeing, but my buddy Dwight and I wanted to try something different. Portaging a canoe a mile in deep snow seemed like a good challenge.
Edit: Forgot to add that people had snowshoed into the lake the day before so there was at least a semi-packed trail to follow.
So we dragged the Odyssey into the lake using the canoe like a sled. It actually worked pretty well. Biggest problem was maneuvering that 18.5' boat around corners in the trail. We had to go off trail in several places and the snow was fairly deep.
The back drop at the lake was quite scenic. We had a limited amount of time before we'd be in shadow so we ate our lunch on the water.
Here's Dwight...
And my younger self...
It's a small lake (53 acres) so it didn't take long to circumnavigate it a couple of times. We enjoyed our lunch floating out in the middle of the lake, taking in the view.
That's Whistler Mountain on the right and the back side of Cutthroat Mountain to the left behind it. Highway 20 is located down in the pass between us and Whistler.
It was a fun day and definitely one of the more unique canoe trips I've done. It was interesting also in that in May of 1991 I'd been in here with two others on a spring ski trip up to Lyall Glacier, after they'd opened up the highway. We skied in to the lake, then across on the ice and ascended the cirque wall to the glacier and pitched a tent. The 3-pin telemark skiing was fantastic.
Rainy Lake is located in the North Cascades of Washington state, within the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and accessible from scenic Highway 20.
It's a mile in from the trailhead using a gently rising paved trail. It's a cirque lake nestled in the basin below Frisco Mountain. (The terrain up there is perfect for back-country Nordic downhill skiing but that's a different trip report.)
Here's why this day trip was unique...
I forget the exact year (1998?) but late one October we got a big snow storm that left a lot of snow on the ground but the WA DOT decided to keep Highway 20 open for a while longer. Hwy 20 shuts down in the winter, usually November to May because of the amount of snow and the avalanche danger so the window of opportunity for canoeing on Rainy Lake in the snow is small. Either there isn't much snow when it's still ice free or if there's plenty of snow it's iced over.
Here's my 1986 VW Jetta GLI with my Wenonah Odyssey tandem at the trailhead. As you can see, this isn't the kind of place you'd normally think of going canoeing, but my buddy Dwight and I wanted to try something different. Portaging a canoe a mile in deep snow seemed like a good challenge.
Edit: Forgot to add that people had snowshoed into the lake the day before so there was at least a semi-packed trail to follow.
So we dragged the Odyssey into the lake using the canoe like a sled. It actually worked pretty well. Biggest problem was maneuvering that 18.5' boat around corners in the trail. We had to go off trail in several places and the snow was fairly deep.
The back drop at the lake was quite scenic. We had a limited amount of time before we'd be in shadow so we ate our lunch on the water.
Here's Dwight...
And my younger self...
It's a small lake (53 acres) so it didn't take long to circumnavigate it a couple of times. We enjoyed our lunch floating out in the middle of the lake, taking in the view.
That's Whistler Mountain on the right and the back side of Cutthroat Mountain to the left behind it. Highway 20 is located down in the pass between us and Whistler.
It was a fun day and definitely one of the more unique canoe trips I've done. It was interesting also in that in May of 1991 I'd been in here with two others on a spring ski trip up to Lyall Glacier, after they'd opened up the highway. We skied in to the lake, then across on the ice and ascended the cirque wall to the glacier and pitched a tent. The 3-pin telemark skiing was fantastic.
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