North Cascades – Labor Day weekend 2018

With cool, moist, and smoke-free air having blown in off of the Pacific, it was a great weekend to hike in the North Cascades. On Saturday, we were at the Wake n Bakery in Glacier when they opened at 7:30, and an hour later, after driving 12.9 miles of forest service road, there were only seven cars in the lot when we arrived at the Skyline Divide trailhead. After the steady climb through the forest up to the ridge, the trail continued up and down along the ridge and fed into the Hadley Peak route, which we continued on towards Koma Kulshan (aka Mt. Baker), eventually taking a climber’s trail to an un-named promontory for lunch. It was a beautiful trail and included sightings of a very large and vocal raptor perched on the top of a tree, another raptor that flushed off the ridge ~ 10’ ahead of me, and a third soared just below us as we ate lunch. There were also three marmots and a pika along the route. Despite lingering on the shoulder of Koma Kulshan we never saw the big mountain on Saturday, but the short to medium views were rewarding. Quote of the day as another couple watched us pull three boiled eggs out of my pack: “real food” they exclaimed gleefully. The approach to the lunch perch was across an exposed ridge, so we opted to descend below along a steep scree field. Both sections had Mrs. Pinky rather unhappy with me, but as soon as we rejoined some semblance of a normal trail, she exclaimed “that was awesome”. After 11.4 miles of hiking and 3,100’ of climb, and the distal mile on more of a climber’s route, we opted to head straight to dinner. (Listening to the audio book “A False Report” made the forest service road go by quicker.)

On Sunday, the skies cleared as we climbed Winchester Mountain to amazing views, including the full length of Skyline Divide, Koma Kulshan, Shuksan, and the rest of the northern Cascades. We added in much of the High Pass trail so that we would spend more time hiking than driving the forest service road. Next up is Hannegan Peak trail…