Mount Baker

July 18: Monday morning and Scott was off to work before we woke. I spent a quiet morning catching up on 'journaling' and went through some photos, but still didn't get around to updating anything online - it will be a serious job once I do (yeah...it was). After some leisurely breakfast, we made our way to the Heliotrope Ridge Trail at Mount Baker. Once off the highway, the steep, narrow road to the trailhead was lined with what might be rainforest - big, damp, lush.

The weather was overcast with temp.s in the 50s, good weather for a hike/run, though not ideal for scenery. The trail was not crazy busy, but plenty of people for a Monday! Aside from some muddiness at the bottom, the tread was good despite the dampness and abundant rocks and roots, and we had a few good stretches to break into a trot for the ~2.5 mile, ~1,800' climb. There were many stream crossings with little waterfalls, that I could see being a bit sketchy in the spring or after a big rain!

Can't have too many waterfall pics

The established trail ended overlooking part of the Coleman Glacier, though lots of little trails traversed the whole ridge and we ended up getting a little higher than I initially thought we would with just a little scrambling up loose rock. Seeing a glacier, even a small one, so close was pretty awesome!

I didn't go past the snowfield, but Rudy got a little further

And I always enjoy seeing the little plants and flowers thriving amongst the rocks.

We even got to see a mountain goat that didn't seem to be too concerned with us, though we didn't get too close.

After checking out the ridge for awhile, we noticed clouds rolling up the mountain pretty quickly, so started making our way back down. Back on the main trail it was easy to jog most of the way, just slowing as we crossed streams and passed other hikers heading up. Towards the bottom we noticed some salmonberries - good snack, though maybe not fully ripe yet!

yum

After returning to the parking lot, we got on the bikes for a little 1+ mile climb to Mt. Baker Vista. With the clouds and lots of tall trees, it wasn't much for an overlook, but a flatter, and quieter, place to camp - so moved the van up there, after chatting with a younger couple in the parking lot that were getting ready to back pack in for ice climbing - lots of gear and ambition!

Elderberries? Plus a cool little spider to share camp with

The rest of our evening was pretty laid back - some stretching, reading, no-cook simple supper, and the first two episodes of Game of Thrones. I enjoyed reading the books and am looking forward to watching the series, but so far we're not terribly impressed with the shows...an option for rainy days I guess.
July 19: A clearer morning so we could see more of Mt. Baker, for at least an hour until clouds built back up.

A little glimpse of Mt. Baker

We took our time with some tea and breakfast before making our way back to the town of Glacier to pick a few more hikes at the Forest Service visitor center. On the drive down, Rudy couldn't resist an abundant patch of thimbleberries, so we pulled off the narrow road and spent a few minutes picking - good for a couple cups of delicious!

more yum

It would be after noon before we started anything, so chose a moderate 8 mile hike on Church Mountain for the day. A minor wash out and some loose rock on the road to the trailhead had us park a mile below the trailhead (plenty of other vehicles went all the way up to the trailhead, but I guess we're a little on the cautious side with the big van!) So we managed another 10+ mile hike, up and down, with a lot of elevation gains on the order of 1,000'/mile with open forest, then alpine meadow, then rocky cragginess.

Church Mountain pre-clouds

and getting cloudier

More cool plants

Clouds were moving in and out as we neared the top of the trail, and were pretty thick when we hit the end. We could tell it was pretty steep of the edges and it was eerie not being able to see where the slopes went!


More cool little flowers growing out of the rocks too!

With the lack of scenery and cool breeze, we quickly refueled on some trail mix and headed back. The hike down included a lot of jogging - this trail had more runnable sections than our last few hikes - but still, soreness/tiredness were becoming apparent the last few miles. With a calm day and the sun peeking through once in a while, it wasn't too difficult to clean up in the creek by where we parked.  There weren't any big pools, but the edge of the road made a mini shower that added some refreshment to simply wiping down with a wash cloth!

Our first game of Trivial Pursuit on the road was a bit pathetic - sooo tired, but we got through and learned stuff.