Skyline Divide

Road 37

Truthfully, not much of an update. Winter decided to return this week so snow levels returned close to their normal levels. Exploring Forest Service Road 37 (the road to the Skyline Divide trailhead) has been on my list for a while and I finally got around to it yesterday. Honestly, I was surprised at the general lack of interesting spots along this road. Maybe it’s because it’s still the dead of winter and the vegetation hasn’t leafed out yet. The first few miles have a wonderful moss-covered forest floor and I was tempted a few times to stop and look for compositions since there was some sunlight filtering through the canopy.

I wanted to check out as much as I could so I pressed on. I ended up taking a few photos along the Nooksack in one particular location since I initially saw some fog/low clouds further up valley:

North Fork Nooksack River
North Fork Nooksack River
Meanders - North Fork Nooksack River
One thing I’m very excited about was finding a wonderful spot to photograph the valley from. Two years ago, I remember spotting a particular avalanche track that was ablaze in brilliant yellow from the big leaf maples located in the valley floor. I saw this from the Wells Creek Road but did not have a good vantage to take advantage of it. I wondered if Road 37 would offer a better vantage and it does!

It requires a very short hike but the entire valley drops away from you and Church Mountain stands prominently across the valley. I’m excited to shoot this location in the fall and other times during this coming summer since it will also offer opportunities to shoot above any valley fog. Except for a few iPhone photos and a GPS positional fix, I don’t have any photos to share just yet.

I began to run out of time but I continued up the road to see how far I could get before hitting snow. That turned out to be the crossing of Dead Horse Creek where the snow on the road turned continuous. Someone else’s tire tracks continued up the road but I thought better of following them any further. I did get out and briefly explore Dead Horse Creek upstream of the road but didn’t find any good opportunities on this stretch.

Cougar Divide

What’s worse than forgetting your camera?

Forgetting the memory card AND bringing the camera. Such is the reality I dealt myself this weekend as I arrived at the trail to Cougar Divide. More on that later..

This trail lies at the end of Wells Creek Road at about 5,000 feet and is only accessible for 4 short months of the year. I use the term accessible loosely because the road receives little to no maintenance (particularly after the bridge over Wells Creek). Still, as of this writing, the trailhead is still accessible with only one stretch of road that could unnerve the average driver or someone in a full size pickup.

Only one other car at the trailhead but TONS of mosquitos which should have been my first omen. I had sunscreen but no bug juice. Somewhat annoying but how bad could it be? Uh, BAD. Just 15 minutes in on the trail brings you to a viewpoint which would make any other hike worth it:

Mount Baker from the Cougar Divide Trail
180 Degree Panorama from Cougar Divide Trail. Mount Shuksan (left center) and Mount Baker (right center)
Small meltpond along Cougar Divide Trail
In this open subalpine forest, there are many interesting geological features:

Volcanic Rock along the trail. Skyline Divide in the background.
More Trailside Geology
After a brief open stretch the trail plunges back into forest before reaching meadows. On this particular day, however, my journey ended here in the woods:

Along Cougar Divide
Taking that three photo panorama resulted in my legs being devoured by mosquitos. Given the fact that I couldn’t use my primary camera, I decided to turn around and save the rest of this hike for an upcomming weekend. So what do you do when you can’t use your camera? In my case, I decided to press on and use my iPhone 3GS so every photo from this blog post is an iPhone photo. I thought it didn’t do that bad a job, though I did lighten the photos up in Photoshop. Live and learn!..

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