Burnout Point/Lost Lake loop hike

We set our alarm this morning so we could get an early start for our hike. We drove to the Lost Lake parking lot off of Chuckanut drive. It was overcast but a comfortable temperature for hiking. As we were walking through the parking lot we spied this Towhee.

We headed up the Fragrance lake road until it forked with the Burn out road.

Our view at the first view spot.

My husband walking up the road in the clear cut area.

Foxgloves galore.

Of course we had to stop and enjoy eating the ripe wild Blackberries along the road.

Me - enjoying the view.

Huckleberries

Salmon berries

More views and flowers❤

Did I say the flowers were spectacular❤❤

Red Elderberry. We saw several Cedar Waxwing eating off of these bushes that were all along this section of the road.

As we made our way up to the high point of the logging road we saw a bunny enjoying a snack. it didn't seem to mind that we were there at all.

No views of Mt. Baker today, but we could see Lake Samish.

The trail down the hill side to Lost Lake had grown in considerably since the last time we'd gone down it. It appears as if it is a Mtn. bike trail now. Sometimes it was so thick I couldn't see the trail or my husband in front of me.

We had a log over the trail at one point. I tried to figure out the best approach to get past it: under or over? We chose over. Here's a look at it "after" we'd conquered it.

We saw "many" slugs along our journey today and a couple of open robin eggs.

Trillium gone to seed

After we'd gone about a mile through the "jungle" we found the forest floor we were used to, we walked along the lake for awhile and then stopped at the large rock at the lake for lunch.

As we made our way around the lake I spied this small fungus with water drops all over it, I found it interesting so I took a close up of it.

After turning to go along the other side of the lake, we passed the Rock trail junction and continued on to the South Lost lake trail.

We went through a stinging nettle jungle. Wow, they were tall and reaching out for us. Yikes!

After turning onto the Fragrance lake road that would take us to the parking lot we saw these Ghost pipe plants just erupting from the earth.

One last stop as we made our way down the road - the waterfall!

Total miles hiked - 10.6 miles

total ascent - 2395 feet

It started to drizzle just as we were nearing the parking lot and by the time we got home it was raining, so we timed it perfectly😉

Artist Point Snowshoe

Sunday was a blue sky day so I suggested to my husband that we go for our first snowshoe outing of the year. He also thought it was a good idea, so we packed up and headed up to the Mt. Baker ski area. The gate to Artist Point is still closed so we walked up the road until it became snow covered and then we put on our snowshoes for a walk up the road.

Walking up in the snow looking towards Table mtn.

A look down at the old Slush cup pond. There was lots of activity there, many types of snow and some "not so" snow use items were used yesterday to get them down the hill and to skim across the surface of the pond. It only had a small melted out area, the rest had shallow water on top of the ice. We could hear their "yahoo's" as we made our way up the road.

Looking out towards Goat mtn., Tomyhoi peak and Yellow Aster Butte.

On our way up we passed some people who had these wonderful dogs who were just laying in the snow, I thought they were extra cute. I asked their people if I could take a photo of the dogs, they said yes as you can see❤

We continued on...

We cross country walked the last section bypassing the last corner into the parking lot. We came out below Huntoon point and saw our first view of Mt. Baker.

We could see Baker lake in the distance.

If you enlarge the photo below you'll see the foot path in the snow of hikers already going towards the Chain lakes/Ptarmigan ridge trail junctions.

In the photo below you can see the Artist Point parking lot outhouse barely showing its' roof in the snow.

Table mtn.

As we got closer to the "roof" I took a photo of it with the peaks in the distance.

We found a rocky outcrop to sit and have a snack while we enjoyed the views around us.

From our spot we could see Mt. Baker, Shuksan and Table mtn.

A photo of my husband with Baker in the distance. *I had to lighten the photo, so a slight edit on this one.

A photo of me with Table mtn. in the distance.

As we made our way back down, my husband spotted this heart rock. He's getting better than me at spotting them!

One more photo of Shuksan

What a day!

Total miles hiked - 5 miles

total ascent - 863 feet