When you were a kid, you always wanted the piece of cake with the frosting flower on top.

North Cascades National Park Service Complex is the frosting flower of the Pacific Northwest.

Here, you get the best of everything. Across 684,000 acres, you can climb towering peaks, bathe in the mist of plunging waterfalls, and savor the silence of forested glades.

The complex is comprised of North Cascades National Park and Ross Lake and Lake Chelan National Recreation Areas.

Ross Lake National Recreation Area is the doorway to this mountain paradise. Created by one of three dams on the Skagit River, Ross Lake covers more than 25 miles and offers a variety of water sports and outdoor activities.

Take a scenic drive along the North Cascades Highway. Pose for pictures by Gorge Falls or Rainbow Falls. Have lunch in historic Stehekin. Launch your boat into Lake Chelan.

Hike trails through the Stephen Mather Wilderness, home to gray wolves, grizzly bears, and wolverines. Search the skies for bald eagles, osprey, and migratory songbirds. Perhaps you’ll stumble across evidence of an old mining camp or the foundation of a once bustling hotel.

Like that extra bit of frosting, North Cascades National Park Service Complex is something to savor.

Source

• http://www.npca.org/parks/north-cascades-national-park-service-complex.html