I took a drive today to Stampede Pass and towards Lester. I was going to hike somewhere but the weather, while not raining, was very cloudy and a little drizzly. Low clouds for no view and I wasn’t going to hike where I couldn’t see anything. Since I hadn’t been to Stampede Pass in years, I thought what the heck, a great place to explore. I went over the pass and as far as I could, about 2 miles short of Lester, WA. I parked at a closed bridge over a creek, and had to walk in from there. There was a relatively new house near the bridge, which wasn’t occupied but was, apparently, a DNR house that is used at times throughout the year by various state, power company, and railroad people.
I googled “Lester WA” on the internet before I left, and one website said to park at the bridge and walk in. I thought it had said a 1/2 mile or so walk, but I walked in a mile and didn’t see anything. It was cool and I wasn’t exactly dressed for 55 degrees so I turned around at a field and headed back to the truck. There were elk droppings and fresh bear scat on the road so I kept my eyes open. As I was nearing the car a WA DNR truck drove up and the driver and I chatted a bit. He said it was a light day, no one out to “visit”. He and another coworker were responsible to make two checks per day out along the road to Lester, make sure nothing was going on. We had a good chat. Turns out that Lester was about 2 miles down the road from where I parked, not the 1 mile that I walked, so I’ll have to come back sometime and take a closer look. I did get a picture on the way back of the BNRR line from higher up on the moutain. Would have been nice to see a train!
Here is a GPS map of my drive: 
As you can see on the map, I took a couple other detours both east and west on a couple forest service roads.
At least I got in a two mile walk, not really a hike. But it helped with the long drive in to stretch my legs.
More pics:
