We did our first Mt. Baker area hike of the summer today - Chain lakes loop, starting at the Austin pass/Heather meadows parking lot. We opted to hike up the Wild Goose trail and then go over Herman's saddle to our finish.
We've been having a lot of smoke in the air lately from the British Columbia fires, but there was supposed to be a marine push that would help take some of it away. It was still there, but not too bad.
A friendly fellow took our picture before we started up the trail.
I love the Wild Goose trail. It's about a mile hike up to Artist point parking lot.
We had almost a blue sky for our start.
Usually when we hike it there is still a snow field before the top that opens up to the road, and we follow that to the parking lot. Today there wasn't much snow so we followed the trail all the way to the parking lot. As you can see by looking at Shuksan in the photo below, that there was still some smoke in the air.
We walked across the parking lot and got on the Chain lakes trail.
Mount Baker, barely visible in the distance.
Iceberg lake with a reflection and flowers around it.
We took a left turn when we got to Galena lake and sat on a knoll for our lunch break.
After a nice lunch break we headed up the trail to Herman's saddle. We looked back to see Iceberg lake and Mount Baker. The photo below shows our last attempt to see Mount Baker through the smoke, it's barely visible.
I like this photo of my husband standing on the flat rocks at the top of the saddle.
A look over the saddle and there was Shuksan and Bagley lakes!
After we got through the boulders and rock section of the trail we came into a wonderful green, lush flower filled area ❤.
Then it was cross the bridge and hike up to the parking lot for our finish.
It was so beautiful, it was hard for me to leave today.
We stopped at Graham's for the mandatory ice cream cone and horror of horrors, we were told they would no longer be selling them
WHAT!!!!
We solved that by driving to the store in Maple falls and bought our ice cream cones, only to be told by them that they might stop selling them as well. He said they are too hard to scoop.
Good grief - Spartan up.
We hikers need our ice cream after hikes on hot summer days.
Total miles hiked - 7.02
(I start my Garmin at the car bumper and stop it when we return to the bumper, hence the .02 😉.
Total ascent - 1867 feet
Total descent - 1880 feet
Yes, we discovered the ice cream cone fiasco earlier this year. I sure hope that Maple Fuels keeps selling them. Love your description of one of my favorite hikes. :-)
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