Hiking Ptarmigan Ridge

January 2, 2025December 17, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

I don’t do a lot of hiking in Washington, but I make a point of trying to go there at least once every year in the Fall to hike near Mount Baker. I’ve read that North Cascades National Park is one of the lesser visited parks in America, which is a shame because it’s a really beautiful place! Mount Baker is technically outside of the park, but it is in the Snoqualmie National Forest/Mount Baker Wilderness Area. It’s approximately 2 hours from Vancouver, so it’s really accessible and it is absolutely gorgeous in the Fall!

Brandon and I go on an annual Thanksgiving Day (Canadian) hike every year and this year we decided to do the Ptarmigan Ridge hike, which leaves from the Mount Baker ski area. My first hike in this area was in 2018 and I hadn’t been back to this specific parking lot since pre-pandemic. It’s wild how much more popular the area is now than 5 years ago! The most popular trail is to Artist Point, which is a small lookout at the top of the pass. In the summer, you can drive all the way up to the parking lot at the top of the pass, and from there it’s a short hike to the summit. However, when it starts to snow, they close the gate and you have to hike an additional 3km each way to get to the parking lot.

I’ve never been to Mount Baker when the gate has been open, so it was a great surprise to arrive and discover that we could save 6km of hiking by parking at the upper lot. You do need a day pass to park here, which you can get in advance online, at the Visitor Centre, or in the parking lot (at the base of the ski hill only, for other hikes you’ll have to utilize one of the other options). It’s $5USD for the entire car, so it’s very reasonably priced.

The Ptarmigan Ridge hike starts from the upper lot (or add on 3km each way from the lower lot) and follows the ridgeline all the way to the East Portal, which is basically as far up the slope of Mount Baker as you can climb before you hit glacier travel. It’s a long trail, 25km round trip if you hike from the lower lot, and it was early October, so we had limited daylight. We weren’t planning to hike the entire trail, we just planned to hike along the ridge until we got tired or had to turn around for daylight reasons. But by skipping the trail from the lower lot, we were able to cut out a lot of elevation gain and ended up doing the entire trail!

I was with my friends Brandon and Simmer; it was a beautiful sunny day and we were all in awe of the gorgeous landscapes. The entire trail is in the alpine, so you have incredible views along the entire 19km of trail. There is a fair bit of elevation gain (~500m), but it’s a pretty gentle slope until just before the Portals, so it was a very enjoyable hike.

The trail starts from the parking lot and shares a trailhead with the Chain Lakes Loop. I did this hike with Lien and Emily a few years ago and it’s another super scenic trail. It was really busy, but I think more people were doing Chain Lakes rather than Ptarmigan Ridge. Chain Lakes is a much shorter hike and it’s a loop, so you don’t have to re-do any terrain. The Chain Lakes trail passes through the lower lot, so it’s a good one to do when the gate is closed because you have to hike the 3km between parking lots either way. If the gate is open, do Ptarmigan Ridge.

I recommend doing both of these trails in the Fall because they are both completely exposed. It’s a gorgeous hike, but I can’t imagine how hot it would be in the dead of summer because there’s very little shade on either hike.

The trails start together and cut across the bowl on the back of Table Mountain. Once you circle around the mountain, they branch and Chain Lakes continues around the rest of Table Mountain, while Ptarmigan Ridge heads towards Mount Baker. Ptarmigan Ridge starts with a downhill section, and then you spend the rest of the day climbing. Like I said, there are views the entire way, but you basically follow the ridge from point to point and there’s a few really nice places to stop along the way.

We were making good time, so we decided to just keep pushing. The closer we got to the end of the trail, the more we wanted to reach the end, but we were also getting very hungry. There’s a wilderness site called Camp Kiser just before the Portals and we decided to stop there for lunch. It’s a steep climb up to the Portals, so we weren’t intending to do that part.

Simmer hiked a huge container of homemade butter chicken up the mountain, so we shared a really nice lunch on the side of Mount Baker, admiring the glacial views along the foothills. The problem was that we were staring up at the Portals the entire time we were eating and the longer I looked at it, the more I wanted to climb it. So we decided to shorten the break and we all trekked uphill for another half hour to reach the top. I’m so glad we did because the view of the glacier was absolutely phenomenal and I felt really accomplished when we summited.

The hike back was relatively uneventful. It was 19km of hiking, so it was a pretty aggressive hike for October. We started around 10:30am and were hiking for ~7.5 hours including our lunch break. It was faster on the way back and we were ahead of the fading light, but we definitely had tired feet on the way back. I would probably have preferred to start the hike a little bit earlier. But we had the Portals viewpoint all to ourselves, so timing wise, it all worked out. There is a small lake where you can camp off trail around the three quarter point, so I’d definitely be interested to return in the future to spend the night.

I always have a great time when I go to the Mount Baker Wilderness Area and this hike was no exception! It’s a big day and I recommend the Fall season, but definitely a hike worth adding to your bucket list!

Hozomeen Lake Backpacking Trip

July 24, 2024April 10, 2025 / Maria / 6 Comments

Disclaimer: I’ve heard that this border crossing is now closed and I don’t believe it’s possible to do this hike from the Canadian side anymore. Below recounts my experience doing the hike in 2024, I wouldn’t advise doing this hike at this time.

The thing I love about BC is that there’s something to do in every season. I love skiing and snowshoeing in the Winter, and kayaking in the Spring, but there’s no question that backpacking season is my favourite. As soon as the warm weather hits, I always get the itch to go to the mountains. But it takes the snow a lot longer to melt in the mountains than in the city, so I always have to impatiently wait until almost July for alpine hiking (though there are still opportunities at lower elevations).

It was a very poor ski season last winter, so I was expecting an early alpine season this year. Unfortunately, we ended up getting a lot of late season snow, and it’s been a cooler and rainier Spring than normal, so by the time July hit, there was still a lot of snow in the mountains. In the long run, I know this is a good thing for wildfire season, but it left me scrambling to find a trip for the Canada Day long weekend.

I monitor the snow in the mountains in several ways. First, I always check Sentinel Playground/Copernicus Browser, which has satellite imagery that allows you to check the snow levels. Availability of data depends on having a cloudless day when the satellite rolls over your area of interest, but generally you can get data on the conditions within the last 2 weeks. Second, I check AllTrails for trail reviews from other users, and finally, I search the location on instagram for recent photos. All this effort confirmed that most of the trails on my hiking list were still inundated with snow.

I spent weeks scouring the internet and maps, looking for an alternative that I hadn’t already done, wouldn’t have permits, and would be appropriate for my husband, Seth, and our dog, Sadie. After much searching, I stumbled upon a very interesting option – the Hozomeen Lake Trail.

Hozomeen Lake is located in North Cascades National Park in Washington State. It’s just south of Skagit Valley Provincial Park and east of Ross Lake. What makes this hike unique is that it’s primarily accessible from Canada, but there’s no formal border crossing. Silver Skagit Road continues through the entirety of Skagit Valley Park, and a few kilometres past the border, but it’s not a manned crossing, so there’s no border control (though there are cameras). Pre-pandemic, you could drive across the border and there were a series of frontcountry campsites located on Ross Lake. But the gate has been closed to vehicles since the pandemic and the campsites are no longer maintained.

Fortunately for us, there is a series of backcountry trails that extend all the way down to Highway 20 in the US, and it appears that they are still being maintained. It’s a 2km hike on the road to the trailhead, and then ~6km of hiking along a forest trail to Hozomeen Lake, which sits at the base of Hozomeen Mountain. Me and Brandon hiked to the base of Hozomeen Mountain via the Skyline II and Hozomeen Ridge Trail in Manning Park in 2017, so we were excited to explore the trail from the other side of the mountain.

Hozomeen Lake is beautiful and doesn’t receive many visitors, so it was a great pick for my extremely anxious dog. It does require a camping permit to stay there, which can be obtained from the National Park Service (NPS) via email. They only issue permits on the day before your trip, but the Ranger is really nice and called me the morning before the hike. I guess some other people emailed ahead of us because he told me the campsites were already full, but he kindly let us use the group site and gave us a permit for two nights.

There’s only a few campsites, maybe 3 or 4, but it turns out the group campsite is actually the nicest one! They’re all located in the trees and have tenting areas (but no pads) and eating areas with a fire pit. But the group site is the closest to the lake, which is what makes it the nicest. There’s 2 open-air pit toilets, one for the single sites and one for the group site. The campground was full on our first night, but we didn’t meet any of the campers because everyone had a dog, so we kept our distance since Sadie doesn’t like other dogs. But on the second night, there were only two women at one of the other sites and Sadie adopted them into our herd.

It’s a pretty easy hike and the trail is super well maintained. The walk along the road is flat and easy for 2km. The first half of the trail is uphill with 400m of elevation gain, but it levels out as you get closer to the lake. It’s pretty much entirely in the trees, but it’s a nice walk and we didn’t see anyone (human or bear) on the way in or out. There was some evidence of bears on the trail, but none at the lake.

It was overcast on our first day, but very humid, so we hiked in shorts. There was rain in the forecast, so we quickly set up our tents and tarps upon arriving and me and Seth went for a little skinny dip in the lake. Campfires were allowed when we visited, so we collected some firewood to store under the tarp for the next evening. It started to drizzle during supper, but it didn’t properly rain until 11pm, which was after we had gone to bed. It’s a gorgeous lake campsite, the only downside is that there is no bear cache. It took me and Brandon a long time to set one up, and I admit, it wasn’t our best work.

It rained pretty hard all night, but tapered off around 8am when we got up. It still sprinkled a little bit while we had breakfast, but then it stopped and didn’t rain anymore on the trip. We had a slow lazy morning by the lake and me and Brandon improved our bear cache until it was acceptable. We packed up our day bags and set out on a hike around 11:30am.

The trail continues on for miles and miles and there’s a lot of backcountry to explore. We decided to hike to Willow Lake, which is approximately 3.5km further along the trail. Brandon seemed keen to go all the way to Nightmare campsite, which is another 3.5km, but we wanted to swim in the lake again later and opted not to (plus, the name didn’t sound super appealing).

Hozomeen Lake is definitely a much nicer campsite than Willow Lake, but it was a great spot to stop for lunch. If you push through some of the brush, you can walk out over the dried up flats to the edge of the lake. This may have only been possible because the water level in the lake was super low! We ate on the banks of the lake and it proved a great spot for watching wildlife. We saw tons of different birds, amphibians, and insects.

Seth and Brandon spent most of the hike back trying to identify the forest plants and we arrived back at Hozomeen Lake around 3pm. The temperature of the lake is really nice – it’s cold, but not glacier fed – so we spent a lot of time in the water. We befriended the new campers, who were also from Vancouver, and we all marveled at how awesome the campsite is and how there’s so few people!

We ate dinner by the lake and then had a campfire at the fire ring. Always practice fire safety and only collect dead wood on the ground (don’t destroy any natural habitat). There was lots of blowdown for firewood, which is another indicator the site doesn’t get a lot of visitors. Sadie was absolutely pooped after 2 days of hiking and snoozed for most of the evening.

In the morning, we packed up to head home again. It’s an easier hike on the way back and we stopped at the overgrown frontcountry site to admire the view across Ross Lake. Ross Lake is currently super low and dry for the entire 2km of road walking, but the mountains across the lake are pretty. Our new friends told us there were bats living in one of the outhouses, so that was a cool side trip on the way back.

It is a fairly long drive to get to Ross Lake, the worst part being an hour and half on gravel road from Hope to the lake. We stopped in Hope for ice cream and then weathered the long drive back on the highway with all the other long weekend warriors. But overall, we all absolutely loved this trip! It was much more chill than some of my other backpacking trips, with the lake and lack of crowds being the main highlights! I would definitely recommend!

Hiking Winchester Mountain

December 20, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

In my humble opinion, one of the most underrated National Parks in America is North Cascades National Park. This is likely because of its remote location in the north of the country, but neighbouring Mt. Baker-Snoquolmie National Forest / Mt. Baker National Recreation Area is only a ~2 hour drive from Vancouver (and is more or less an extension of the park), so I’ve made a few trips down there over the years and I’ve yet to do a hike that wasn’t jaw-droppingly beautiful. It can get fairly busy, but compared to other National rec sites, it receives relatively few visitors (and half of those visitors are likely Canadian).

For some reason, almost all the hikes I’ve done in the North Cascades have been in the Fall, though I have done Artist Point twice in the winter. I first visited in 2018, and even in the last 5 years, the area has definitely grown in popularity in the Fall. When we crossed the border on this visit, the border agent asked where we were going, and when we said “hiking near mount baker”, he said, “you and every other Canadian that’s crossed the border today”.

This was my first time going down to the US for a hike since before the pandemic and it only cemented the idea that I need to visit more. To date, I’ve done the Skyline Divide, Yellow Aster Butte, and Chain Lakes, and they’re all beautiful. I honestly can’t pick a favourite between any of them. We added Winchester Mountain to the list over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and it was another stunning hike! I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface on the plethora of hikes in this area, so I’m determined to visit even more next year.

Like I said, it’s only about a 2 hour drive from Vancouver, unless there’s a long wait at the border, which is not uncommon. We always cross the border at Sumas and take Highway 542 towards Mount Baker Ski Area. You don’t need to do much pre-planning, except to get a $5 parking pass for the National Forest. These aren’t limited or reservation based, so just pick one up online before crossing the border to leave in your car. If you forget to get one online, you can get one from the Visitor Center, but their hours are very limited and it’s not always open.

If you’re visiting in the Fall, Yellow Aster Butte is by far the most popular hike (followed closely by the Chain Lake trail). The hillside turns bright yellow and attracts a lot of visitors, so I recommend arriving super early for this hike as parking is limited for the hordes of people that want to do the hike. I hiked the trail with Lien several years ago and parking wasn’t too much of a problem, but we had to drive past the Yellow Aster trailhead on our way to Winchester this year and it was an absolute gong show! There were hundreds of cars blocking the road and you more or less had to park half way down the mountain if you arrived mid morning (like we did).

This was the main downside of going to Winchester Mountain. The trailhead to Winchester is located several kilometres uphill past Yellow Aster Butte, but it requires 4WD to get to the top, so it considerably thins out the crowds. Some people will hike all the way up from the Yellow Aster parking lot (which in my opinion is still worth it), but it was nice to be able to drive right to the trailhead in Brandon’s 4Runner. In my opinion, Winchester is a more scenic and easier hike than Yellow Aster Butte. The key reason for this is because you do a lot of the elevation gain in the car, so by the time you reach the trailhead, you’re already in the sub-alpine and the entire hike has incredible views of the backcountry.

Parking is at Twin Lakes, which is aptly named for the pair of lakes at the base of Winchester Mountain. There are actually several rec sites that are first come-first serve at the lakes (and are gorgeous), so we’re keen to come back some time in the summer to stay overnight. Fortunately we didn’t have trouble finding parking at Winchester and even on Thanksgiving weekend, there were lots of empty campsites.

The entire hike up to Winchester Lookout is less than 6km round trip, but it is steep and covers ~400m in elevation gain from top to bottom. It’s a steady climb, but it’s one of the most colourful fall hikes I’ve ever done on the west coast! I personally liked it better than Yellow Aster Butte, but I did have better weather than when I did Yellow Aster. On this day, it was beautiful, warm, and sunny, with blue skies all day. I thought we were done for summer weather since it was October, but I was glad I packed a pair of shorts just in case. This is very subjective though because I did Yellow Aster and Chain Lakes at the exact same time of year and needed my parka on both of those occasions (though I also did the Skyline Divide in shorts in late October).

It took us under 2 hours to hike to the top and we stopped a lot to take photos and videos. Lien had a rough start to the hike – he unwisely had a dairy-heavy breakfast at the cafe we stopped at, and his lactose intolerance punished him for it. He disappeared up the trail while the rest of us were still packing our bags and we couldn’t find him (which is very out of character for Lien). We were surprised he’d gone so far ahead without us, but he eventually stumbled out of the bushes looking for my trowel and I force-fed him some pepto-bismal and he eventually recovered, lol.

There’s an old fire lookout at the top of the trail, which I’ve seen featured on instagram several times. There’s one bed inside that you can claim if you’re lucky – I’m not sure how popular that option is though because no one was using it on this beautiful sunny day. Like all the hikes in this area, there are gorgeous views of Mount Baker and this particular lookout points north towards Canadian Border Peak. There’s another trail that leaves from the base called High Pass trail and goes up towards Larabee Peak that I’d definitely be keen to visit on another occasion.

We hung out at the top for an hour or so before heading back down. It’s all downhill on the way back, so it makes for a pretty quick day hike. The pay-off for the level of effort expended is very high, but most of the hike is exposed, so if you have a fear of heights, this might not be the best choice. If you don’t have 4WD, the distance from the lower lot is ~3.5km each way, so I still think it’s worth it to climb up, and odds are you might be able to hitch a ride with some other hikers. We would definitely have picked some people up if we didn’t already have 5 adults and an anxious dog in the car.

We finished the hike with a swim in Twin Lakes at the end. Actually, I should say, me and Lien finished the hike this way. Everyone else chickened out because the water was quite cold, but I’ll swim in pretty much anything, and Lien was keen for a bath. But in conclusion, it’s an absolutely fantastic hike and I’d love to spend some more time in this area in the next few years. If you’ve spent a lot of time near Mount Baker, please let me know your favourite hikes!