Today’s hike was supposed to be an 8 mile round trip hike along Baker Lake at the dam end. The road was out (if you can make it out in this picture, there is actually a large piece of road this is just space) so I ended up driving wayyyy up to the other end of Baker Lake and hiking 9 mi round trip. I talked to a local hiker and he let me know that if I turned on the next road after the washed out one, that I could still get to that part of the trail, but he hiked the whole thing last weekend and apparently the trail was washed out about 1 mile in. He said if I wanted a longer hike the other end would be best.
The last 5 miles or more of road is dirt. Most of it was fine, but there were a lot of potholes to watch out for. Not so bad unless you need to use the bathroom and then potholes become a horrible endless torture. The trail head had a nice big parking lot and outhouse (yay!). About 8 cars were already parked there, but I think some of them were fisherman, as I guess fishing opened on that lake this weekend.
It was a gorgeous sunny day. Supposed to be around 65 in town, and was close to 60 even up in the mountains. After half mile on the trail, we crossed the Baker River on a suspension bridge. Cedar wasn’t thrilled, but got all the way across under his own power.
The forest seemed especially enchanted today with sunbeams shining down in gleaming rays, butterflies and hummingbirds flitting around, and the sleepy hum of bees. I wanted a picture of a hummingbird, as I could hear a lot of them, but was lucky to even glimpse one, zooming around so fast. Luckily the trees hold still. After this hike, I did a quick ½ mile loop called Shadow of the Sentinels, and there were huge fir trees on it around 600 yrs old. On the main hike the biggest trees were cedars and they were monstrous. They had to at least be as old, if not older.
Here is some artwork done by some kind of wood boring worm. Not cool for trees, but I had to admire this masterpiece.
Flowers bloomed everywhere. Trillium along the whole hike, and bleeding hearts were starting to bloom. There were little yellow violets near the sunny river’s edge, and coltsfoot near some of the streams that crossed the trail. Huge fat buds were appearing at the end of the viciously thorned stalks of the devil’s club as well. I love the spring.
Most of the trail was too far to see Baker Lake, but once I got close, I could also see Mount Baker reflected in it. Dazzling!
There were a lot of lovely streams that burbled across the trail. Some had bridges, and some didn’t, but they were all crystal clear and ice cold.
At the end of the trail, for us anyway, was Noisy Creek Hiker Campground. We didn’t have our lunch in the camp ground, but went a little further and ate lunch on the rocks of Noisy Creek. I soaked my feet in the icy water while I ate. Afterward I was rewarded with a beautiful view of Mount Baker from the beachy area there.
I wish I had more pictures of the birds we saw and heard. I heard a grouse in the distance, and saw the ruby throats of hummingbirds. I heard woodpeckers drilling into the bark, and at one point I even thought I heard an owl. It sounded a little bit like when my Dad sneezes loudly though, so maybe it was someone’s dad up ahead on the trail somewhere. I did get a picture of this raven, which landed right next to the road as I was driving back out. The minute he saw my camera he flew to a further tree and turned his back for this picture.
The Shadow of the Sentinels was supposed to be a nice paved and boardwalked ½ mile loop to finish off our day. Most of the pavement was taken out and replaced with crushed rock. Also, it said to use the interpretive signs to journey “back in time” and I saw no interpretive signs at all. Still it was pretty and Adventure Dog and I walked down this “path” which was actually the top of one of those old firs which had fallen, and was lined on each side with a nursery of new trees.
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