Picture of the week ~ Bears as seen through binoculars

A short hike from Artist point

We thought we'd head up to Artist Point today to stretch our legs and do an active recovery day from last weekends Spartan events.

The sky was not too promising for views after we drove to the Artist Point parking lot. Mount Shuksan is somewhere there in the clouds.

We headed out towards the Chain lakes/Ptarmigan ridge trail junction. There were plenty of Blueberry bushes along the trail with some semi-sweet berries on them. My husband was the official Blueberry taste tester.

The high country is slowly changing to it's fall colors.

Our view looking up from the trail.

Our view looking down from the trail.

There were Pika and Marmots calling while we were hiking past this area. Do you see the Marmot in the photo below?

How about in this photo below? My camera doesn't have a very good zoom, but I tried to get a clear photo of it.

Nice to see a new Mount Baker Wilderness sign.

Our destination. The trail straight beyond this sign continues on to Ptarmigan ridge. We took a right turn and sat on some rocks and enjoyed the view.

The fog had moved around sufficiently for us to enjoy the landscape for awhile.

We brought our binoculars in case we saw any Goats etc. 

My husband wandered up to the right of us to scan the area for animals and pretty soon he came around the corner and said, "come here, I see a Sow and two cubs".

Way down the hill in the center of the photo below is a clearing. That is where he'd seen the bears through the binoculars.

I zoomed in with our camera and tried to see if they could be seen clearly. Not much luck, they are in the photo below see if you can see them.

I tried a little more zoom, they are on the left of the two trees in the center of the clearing. 

Finally I tried putting my camera up to the eyepiece of the binocular. The three blurry black dots are the bears. I liked how the binocular photo looks like a painting, something like Bob Ross would paint. I think he'd name it "the two happy little trees with a happy bear family". 

Time to head back. The photo below shows our route to the parking lot in the distance.

More fall colors on the hillside.

As we made our way back my husband spotted a lone Goat in the distance with the binoculars. In the photo below the Goat is just at the tree line of the dirt cliff in the center of the photo.

Another feeble attempt at a zoom, but the white dot just at the tree line above the dirt cliff is the Goat.

Zoomed a bit more. Hmmm...if we keep seeing animals I may need to get a better quality camera. People shouldn't have to use their imagination when I say see the Goat in the center of this photo. Ha!

As we drove down the hwy towards home Mount Shuksan gave us a sneak peak of her Majesty.

Garmin stats:

2.88 miles

466 feet ascent

371 feet descent

Even though the day was mostly clouded in, we managed to get some nice views and a nice active recovery day hike in.