The Chuckanuts to Hannegan Pass Road Along the PNT
Hi Fellow Hikers,
According to the National Geographic TOPO program, Stacey and I have now completed 395 miles of the Pacific Northwest Trail. Our latest Section brought us from the seashore of Puget Sound to the gateway of the rugged North Cascades. The Samish and Anderson Overlook, Lyman Hill, and Mt. Josephine all rewarded us with towering views of Canada to the North, the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Mountains to the West, and a glimpse of Seattle to the South.
The Chuckanuts introduced us to a friendly beaver that robotically maneuvered about us for over 15 minutes. We feasted often on multitudes of berries along our entire route. Salmonberry, Red Huckleberry, Oval leaf Blueberry, Thimbleberry, Trailing Blackberry, Bramble, Blackcap, and Gooseberry supplemented our high carbohydrate diet.
The Mixture of trail and logging roads took us over Anderson Mountain where we pleasantly found a PNT trail Crew maintaining the existing network of trails we were to follow.
Lyman Hill brought us up to the subalpine once again with introductory views of the Cascade Mountains and the Skagit River Valley. There is something about flowing through a Silver Fir Forest in transition to a Subalpine Fir Forest with Mountain Hemlock that just makes our Spirits soar. New Wildflowers emerging from a long winters sleep keep us constantly entertained. Blue and Ruffed Grouse shock us with their explosive escape responses to protect their young, while the pileated and hairy woodpeckers echo throughout the seemingly never-ending forests. Chickadee's, Junco's, Flycatchers, tanagers, and all the birds of the forest sing their unique languages for us to examine and learn from. And then there's the very large and lumbering porcupine that first aggressively came towards us, and quickly retreated as we acted like the Paparazzi chasing a celebrity for its photograph.
Mount Josephine showed us the Snow Capped North Cascades to come and a final good-bye to the salt water sea below us. Even a Rock Band was enjoying the views and the devastated clear cut forests. Alter Bridge, remnants of a band once known as Creed, was filming a music video right on our route. Black Bears number seven, eight, and nine, were hungry for blueberries as they retreated hastily through the brush as we sampled their meals along the scenic Baker Lake trail.
The evening was spent soaking at Baker Hot Springs; our third thermal wonder along our journey. With rejuvenated muscle action, we sprung across turbulent Rainbow Creek crossing at a nicely placed double log.
And finally, day five of this section tested our route finding and bush whacking skills to the extreme. The Swift Creek Bridge was out, so we ended up safely fording this swollen drainage about 150 meters south of the normal crossing only to find that the unmaintained trail was also a virtually non existent trail in many spots six miles up to the Lake Ann Trail Junction. We first encountered Stink Current rising high above our heads where we had to crawl on hands and knees till woodlands brought the trail back to life. However, old avalanche chutes soon again devoured this so-called trail where salmonberry, stinging nettle, and devils club stabbed and bled us innumerable times. It looked like Stacey and I got into a tangle with a mountain lion. We must have lost the route in the middle section of the Swift Creek Trail about a dozen times, only to find it again after carefully maneuvering through unmaneouverable vegetation. Many hundreds of trees, boulder fields, and ravines continuously tested us as we hiked less than a mile an hour and came to a dead stop all too often. However, as we entered the montane and eventually the subalpine zones, the unmaintained trail wonderfully became that; an actual trail to follow with snow capped views of Mount Baker and other towering glaciated peaks.
Upon Reaching Austin Summit we decided that when we reached our resupply point on Hannegan Pass Road some ten miles down the Mount Baker Highway, we deserved to take a needed day and half off to lick our wounds.
Welcome to the North Cascades!
Happy Trails from Wayfaring Bern and Enchanted Wart