Sunrise? Sometimes
Good weather during the week convinced me to head up to Mount Baker’s Heliotrope Ridge for sunrise. The morning’s have also brought fog in the valleys so I thought I might be able to parlay that into an additional photo opportunity at the spot I found last weekend. Sunrise was about 7am so I worked the clock backwards- in place an hour before sunrise…an hour for the hike in…2 1/2 hours for the drive up…..2am wakeup. Ugh….
Just 2 days prior, I saw a backcountry ski report from this area which said that the road was drivable to within a 0.25 mile of the summer trailhead. That would cut down on my hike in which was a nice bonus. I left just a bit before 3am and headed out. By about 5am I was getting close to the end of the drivable portion of the Glacier Creek Road. Constant snow began to appear on the road about 1.5 miles before the end. I passed about 3 parked cars and wondered if I should keep driving. The snow was rutted due to tires but I was beginning to get nervous. Not only did I still have to make it uphill and to someplace safe to park, I also was going to have to come DOWNHILL before the sun had any chance to soften up the snow.
I made it to the 0.25 mile mark before the summer trailhead and found a place to park. Up the road, some headlamps danced like fireflies as some climbers were prepping their gear. In a few minutes, I had my gear ready and headed up the road. My destination was the Mount Baker Vista, a nice viewpoint at the end of the road. The mile or so went fairly quickly and so I settled in with my gear and waited for first light. In the mean time, I kept an eye out on a party of climbers heading up Grouse Ridge on their way to the summit.
The clear skies that I started under now had some clouds here and there which built up some anticipation. The official sunrise came and went but the wonderful colors I was hoping to witness never came. Needless to say, this was a disappointment. With morning in full effect, I packed up and headed back to my truck. I proceeded to head up to the Mount Baker Ski Area for some turns but settled for a catnap instead. The high winds just didn’t seem as inviting as a nap in the sun.
I decided to call it a day and headed home. Along the way, I still felt like getting some pictures so I stopped off near Nooksack Falls to explore another short stretch of an unnamed creek I’ve avoided until now. Turns out that there were some nice surprises to be found!…
Lastly, this trip was my first chance to see the work that’s being done to realign a 1/4 mile section of the Mount Baker Highway near the Church Mountain Road. I recognize the need to move the road away from the Nooksack River but I have to admit that I was saddened to see a particular stretch of the forest along the eastbound lane of the highway that had been logged. It looks like it’s being used as a staging area but it was a really nice stretch of forest.
I stopped here about 2 years ago and poked around. The forest floor was moss covered and Twinflower was everywhere. My visit was in spring and so things hadn’t leafed out yet. I vowed to return at some point during the summer months but never did. Now it’s been significantly altered. The sad price of progress..
