A Day Trip to Mount Baker



We drove up to Mount Baker yesterday and hiked through Heather Meadows. I named my daughter Heather after this place. She is much like this place...lovely and serene, yet possessing inner strength. 



Of course, Koda came along. There are hundreds of little trails one can follow through these alpine meadows. Heather plants and wild blueberries line the rocky trails and mountainside. We are on Wild Goose Trail.

The valleys are dotted with glacial lakes and ponds. Koda wants to take a dip.



Glorious reflection of the surrounding majesty.



C'mon Dad, toss a stick for me!

Kelly throws a stick, but it sinks to the bottom. Determined pup does some 'snorkeling' to find it.







What's that Koda? That's not your stick! You brought us a log from the bottom of the lake! LOL

No problem, guys....I'll just break a stick off of this bush for you to toss!

We got up there at about 4:30. Before long, the sun was setting behind the mountains and it was getting dark.


We left at dusk. A bright half-moon was shining over the peaks and valleys as we motored down the winding roads from the mountain. Glacier, the last town before Mt. Baker has some nice restaurants, so we stopped at Milanos Italian Restaurant for a wonderful meal. Kelly had the lasagna, I had fettucini primavera with sweet sausage. Koda slept in the car...she was tired from her adventure on the mountain. What a pleasant outing!

Memories of Mt. Baker from My Childhood

Mount Baker holds many pleasant memories for me. When I was a child, once each summer my parents would load the old car with a picnic basket and a shovel (Mom often dug wild ferns for our yard), and we'd head up to the mountain. Dad would tell stories of his days with the CCC Camp as a cook in a lumber camp, and Mom would  point out the cabin near Glacier where she and Dad moved early in their marriage. It was pretty primitive up there, but they somehow got along. Often we'd stop along the way and fill a cup with icy water from a mountain stream or small waterfall. Let me just say at this point...that water you buy at the 7-11 bears no resemblance to pure glacial fed mountain water, no matter what the price or label! If the vine maples had turned red, Dad would get out his jack-knife and cut some crimson branches for Mom to enjoy on our dining room table. (Please don't write scathing notes about 'not harvesting and leaving no footprint', these were different times and there were no such laws. We were not wasteful people, or insensitive to the environment-we were enjoying natures bounty-and with our limited means, we appreciated it very much.) I feel very sad sometime for children today. They are so removed from their 'protected' environment, that they may not even take a broken seashell from the beach, or a pretty rock as a remembrance of their visit! The know nothing of finding wild blackberries or blueberries and the joy of eating them fresh from the vine, with purple juices dripping from their chins and staining their fingers. They believe that food comes from supermarkets and water from a faucet...or worse, a plastic bottle. And they are horrified to think that a bug may have rested on the head of lettuce that has become their dinner salad. Heaven help us! Rant over.





Mt. Baker from the Fraser River, circa 1880 by Albert Bierstadt



More of Mount Baker

 Mt. Baker is an active volcano, rising 11,000 feet. It 's base is about 40 miles from my home in Lynden, and it's snow-capped peak gazes down upon our county like a serene monarch. The native Americans call it Komo Kulshan. They tell a charming story of Kulshan and his two wives, one equally beautiful to him, and the other less attractive but more amicable. Kulshan eventually favored his less beautiful wife for her charming personality. The pretty wife left him, hoping he would seek her out...but he did not. She missed him terribly and rose up on her toes to look toward him every day. She rose so high that she became Mt. Rainer. The other wife became great with child. She wanted to go to her people of the sea to give birth. So Kulshan persuaded all of his animal friends with claws to dig a great channel for her to ride down the mountain in her canoe. This was how the Nooksack river was formed. The wife road down the river to the ocean and gave birth. Not wishing to be haughty as the first wife, she chose to lie down in the ocean so that people could walk on her shoulders and head. This, say the Lummi Natives, is how Spieden Island came to be.


How blessed it is to live under the shadow of the Mountain, and at the edge of the sea!

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