Sauk Mtn. Trailblazer hike

It was a foggy start for our hike up Sauk Mtn.

here comes the sun

Ten of us enjoyed the meadow flowers as we marched up the many switchbacks

We did hike up above the clouds before they completely burned off 

and got a view of the Twin Sisters and Mt. Baker.

Mt. Baker just at the right edge of the picture

We stopped on a little opening for lunch before heading up to the top.  

Wonderful views while we ate -

Lake below

Rainier  is the far away white bump in the distance (click to enlarge)

After lunch it was up through some snow before reaching the top.

incredible view from the top

Me on the Summit with Mt. Baker over my shoulder (& Pat our fearless leader)

and then back down the many switchbacks to the cars, 

if you click on the picture below to enlarge it you can see the parking lot at the bottom.

Couldn't have been a better day!

(thanks for sending this picture to me Djan!)

Endomondo stats:
3.57 total miles hiked
4335 Min. altitude
5498 Max. altitude
2256 Total ascent
2221 Total descent

Mt. Baker in July

Thought we'd dash up again to check out the snow level at Mt. Baker's Artist point parking lot. We couldn't have asked for a better day.

Mt. Baker

Shuksan

and they dug out the restrooms - hurray!

Ruth Mountain in the distance from lower down on the Nooksack river bed

Looks like it's going to be a great year for hiking in the hills!

Noisy Creek Trailblazer hike

Thursday my husband and I went hiking with the Bellingham Senior Trailblazers. We drove to Baker lake and the trailhead for the Noisy Creek hike. The guidebooks say it's a 9 mile hike, but my iPhone's Endomondo app put it at 10.09 miles & Pat (our fearless leader) 

said his GPS tracked us and 10.1 miles. So a bit of discrepancy with the book, 

but I like that our own tracking devices pretty much matched.

Mosquito spray stop

In about 2 miles we came to Hidden Creek, beautiful and noisy 

but not the Noisy Creek we were looking for ;-)

this picture is from a previous hiking trip (Sulphide creek & Baker river hike May 2011) 

one of the wood bridges on the trail

opening before the site of the campground

after about 2 1/2 hours of hiking we took a right turn at the fork in the trail and walked
to the campground for lunch.

It was a great spot to eat, even a picnic table!

We had a view of the Noisy Creek bridge across the lake.

click to enlarge to get a better look at the bridge

and finally Noisy Creek - 

after lunch we walked a bit farther on the trail so we could say we had actually seen Noisy Creek!

On the Senior Trailblazer's schedule this hike was to be eight miles long. This turned out to be a "little" farther. That's the farthest I've hiked for awhile and even though it was moderate in it's rating - I'm wondering if I'll be rested enough to hike Sauk mtn. with the group next Thursday. 

We'll see......

Nice day for a hike and nice company.

Endomondo stats:

10.09 total miles hiked

Tennant Lake's water trail

We've been having wonderfully warm temperatures here in Northwest Washington. Artist point is opening today, it's the earliest opening since 2005
 (read about it here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/06/28/3072764/artist-point-opens-monday-earliest.html).
We enjoyed spending our Sunday at Tennant lake near Hovander farm. We hadn't been there for awhile and it was heavenly. To get to the water trail you first go through the Fragrance garden. It's a sniff, touch and feel garden. Notice the view of Mt. Baker in the archway.

(click on the pictures to enlarge)

On the way to the boardwalk trail there is a view tower that is a must to climb the stairs inside and catch the views.

bridge crossing the creek

Water trail pictures -

and then it finishes in the Fragrance garden again -

North Butte - Blanchard Mountain

I had originally planned to start hiking with the Senior Trailblazers yesterday but my husband had the day off, so we decided to hike to the North Butte viewpoint on Blanchard Mountain instead. We started on the Alternate Incline trail, heading towards Lizard lake went all the way to the viewpoint on the top then came back down by Lily lake and returned by way of Max's shortcut.

Lizard Lake

Beaver activity

View from the top

Lily Lake

Very industrious Beaver activity

Columbine

It was a really nice hike, after doing Oyster Dome last week 

I didn't know if my legs would do it but it was great fun.

Endomondo stats:
7.76 total miles hiked

I've been hiking alot to get into shape to hike with the Trailblazers again. Here's the post I wrote that has a summary of the hikes I did to prepare for joining them again - https://hearsdifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2013/06/our-resident-frog.html