Washington Cascades - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 313

The restaurant was for sale when we passed, so hopefully new management will con-
tinue serving these Wild West-worthy specialties.
Marblemount Diner DINER$$$
(60147 Hwy 20, Marblemount; mains $9-22; 11am-8pm Mon, Thu & Fri, 8am-8pm Sat & Sun) A
filling as-much-as-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (served 8am to 11am) at weekends is the
highlight of this friendly diner with booths, tables and seating at the bar. Obey 'rule one'
of all buffets: arrive early, before all the food is taken and/or dried out.
Cascadian Farms JUICE BAR
(Hwy 20, mile 100; milkshakes $5; 9am-7pm May-Oct) The first of several organic
snack huts on the Cascades Loop, this place 3 miles east of Rockport offers fresh injec-
tions of organic blueberry fruit shakes, ice cream or coffee. It's housed in an Indonesian-
style Batak hut, and you can sup from your cup at an outdoor picnic table before taking a
self-guided tour around the adjacent organic farm.
TOP OF CHAPTER
North Cascades National Park
Ordained in 1968, the North Cascades National Park is Alaska transplanted into the
lower 48, a thousand square miles of dramatic, daunting wild country strafed with moun-
tains, lakes, glaciers (over 300 of them) and wildlife, but with almost no trace of civiliza-
tion. Schizophrenic weather, massive precipitation, thick rainforest and vertiginous cliffs
have long ensured the remoteness of the park's mountains: steep, alpine behemoths fur-
nished with names like Mt Terror, Mt Fury, Mt Despair and Forbidden Peak. Aspiring
bushwhackers and free-climbers love the unique challenges offered by this eerie wilder-
ness (most of the peaks weren't climbed until the 1930s). The less adrenaline-hungry
stick close to arterial Hwy 20 and prepare for the drive of a lifetime.
For administrative reasons, the park is split into two sections - north and south - sep-
arated in the middle by the Ross Lake National Recreation Area, which encases a spec-
tacular 20-mile section of the North Cascades Hwy (US 20). Bordering the park's south-
ern border around Stehekin lies a third region, the Lake Chelan National Recreation
Area, a 62,000-acre protected park that surrounds the fjordlike Lake Chelan. To avoid
confusion, the three zones are managed as one contiguous area and overlaid by the
Stephen Mather Wilderness, created in 1988.
It is possible to get a basic overview of this vast alpine wilderness by motoring
through in a car on US 20 making use of the numerous pullouts and short interpretive