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Published: July 29th 2018
We left Seattle around 1:30 and drove to Glacier, WA, battling the stop and go afternoon traffic that seems inevitable near any large city these days. Arrived at the Blue T Lodge just west of Glacier around 4:30 PM and checked in at the bar in the adjacent Chair 9 pizza restaurant. The bartender had my reservation and, key in hand, we made our way to our room on the second floor. Lodge room was nicely furnished though without TV reception, refrigerator, microwave, or air conditioning, none of which was a necessity, but all were missed at one time or another. The saving grace was a reasonably fast WiFi connection.
As it turned out, we were just in time for the 4
th of July parade that started at the restaurant and consisted of a couple of floats, an old army truck, fire truck, and around a hundred adults and children on bikes or on foot. The route went down the main highway from the restaurant to the center of the small village, about 1.5 miles. We had dinner at the restaurant, which was closing early so the staff could go to the village and “party”. We didn’t go
July 4th parade
In the parking lot in front of our room adjacent to the restaurant just outside the village of Glacier, WA.to the party, opting instead to turn in early after an early morning and a tiring trip. We didn’t hear too much evidence of the partying, though there were sounds of many loud fireworks in the parking lot late into the evening. The next morning, we were up early and drove about 10 miles to Maple Falls for breakfast and a sandwich for my lunch on the trail. After breakfast, we drove about 30 miles to near the end of the Mt. Baker highway and the trailhead for the Chain Lakes Loop Trail. This trail is 6.25 miles with an elevation gain of 1800 feet and sounded like a good one for our first day. Unfortunately, the trails at that elevation were about 90 % covered in snow, making for really slow slogging unless you were on snowshoes or skis. Consequently, we settled for a shorter 2 mile, fairly level but mostly snow covered trail around Bagley Lake. Beautiful scenery but slow going with much slipping and sliding. After this, we drove on to the end of the road at Artist Point at an elevation of over 5000 ft. This is the location of the main ski area and even
Bagely Lake
The Bagely Lake trail is about a 2 mile loop, the first portion of which is the start of the 6.2 mile Chain Lakes Loop trail that we were not able to do because of all the snow. though the ski concession was closed, it was an extremely popular place with huge parking lots and lots of people tramping around the snow covered slopes. We managed to trudge from the parking area through the snow to a rocky outcropping where we were able to find a little privacy but still with pretty fantastic views and had lunch. After lunch, we drove a short distance down to a visitor center where we spoke with a very informative National Forest volunteer who made several good suggestions for hikes later that day as well as the next day. For the afternoon, we decided to drive back to the lower elevations near our lodge for a hike without snow along the north fork of the Nooksack River. The trail was called the Horseshoe Bend trail which implies there is a horseshoe bend in the river. However, we hiked about 2.5 miles upstream and if there was a horseshoe bend, we didn’t see it. Pretty hike though, through the forest along the river which was running fast and furious -- quite impressive.
On Friday we got breakfast and something for lunch later on the trail, then drove about half way
Bagely Lake
Another of the Bagely Lake trail. back up the Mt. Baker highway to the trailhead for the Hannegan Pass Trail. While the trail to the pass is around 5 miles one way, it is possible to continue for about a mile to Hannegan Peak if so inclined. Unfortunately the trail crosses frequent small waterfalls tumbling from above and down into the valley below. While we were able to negotiate most of these without too much trouble, there were a few that were pretty dicey. We hit one at about the 4 mile mark that we just were not comfortable with. It had a good bit of water flowing down as well as a very slick rock slab slanted toward the valley that had to be crossed. You then had to step up from that slab to a patch of snow and then across the snow to the trail on the other side. We might have made it across but coming back would have been even more difficult, considering that later in the day, more snow melts resulting in more water flowing down. Anne had already crossed the rock slab and gotten to the snow when she commented that it was going to be really hard to
Bagely Lake
A better picture of the lake itself. get back over this spot. Just as she said that, I slipped on the slick rock slab, landing on my rear end, and started sliding down. Below were a lot of big rocks that the water was continuing to flow over on its way to Rose Creek in the valley below. Fortunately I was able to stop sliding just before slipping off the edge of that rock slab. I quickly agreed with Anne that going back over this spot would be bad and suggested that now would probably be a very good time to turn around. She agreed, and we both gingerly and very carefully retraced our steps to the downhill side of the waterfall. Returning to the trailhead by the same route, we made it back with no further problems and with only slight regrets at not having made it at least to the pass. The trail was very scenic with spectacular views of the valley as well as the mountains on either side and at the valley’s head, so we were not too disappointed. After returning to the car, we headed out for our next destination – Squamish, British Columbia.
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