Join Thor, Bear dog, and me as we continue our “Geezer Adventures” with an end-of-summer hike along the Lake Ann Trail in the Mt. Baker Wilderness.
NOTE: This summer Thor and I finally decided that we’d had enough with our continual rehab of various body parts, and needed to get back to our nearby mountains. We are now becoming experts at “Geezer Adventures,” or how to do as much as possible with minimal accommodations.
Our all-too-brief Pacific Northwest summer and mountain hiking are drawing to a close, and due to our various surgeries and health issues, we hadn’t ventured onto one of our favorite hikes in a few years. The Lake Ann Trail starts near the top of the Mt. Baker Highway and drops into a beautiful series of meadows, then climbs some rugged, rocky talus slopes to the foot of the Mt. Shuksan glacier. There, the icily refreshing Lake Ann welcomes the dusty hiker with a bracing swim that we’ve relished for many years. This year, we knew that Thor’s permanent nerve damage in his right calf would prevent him from managing those rocky climbs, and my own various issues would make it very unlikely I could manage. So we accepted that we have turned a corner and would just enjoy the beautiful hike for as far as we could go, with a tentative goal of the beautiful meadow pictured above. We made it, for a round trip of 8.5 miles, our longest hike in some time, so we feel pretty good about “seizing the day.”
Off we go along many switchbacks down into the first meadow:
We were blessed with mostly clear blue skies after driving up through some low-level wildfire smoke drifting from the fires still burning close to the east side of Mt. Shuksan.
Bear dog leads the way along the first meadow.
Beautiful pendant berries of Solomon Seal:
Starting to climb toward the higher meadow, with a first view of snowclad Mt. Baker:
Wild huckleberry bushes are starting to turn color:
Almost to the foot of the first rocky talus slope that the higher part of the trail crosses. With the stiff orthopedic brace he has to wear in order to walk, Thor would have found it hard and dangerous to climb over those boulders.
Bear dog, now also a “senior dog,” decided that this upper meadow was just fine for our picnic spot.
We soaked our feet and Bear dog soaked his belly in the boggy meander where we enjoyed our lunch and the fine view of Mt. Baker.
Heading back past more boulders:
Late afternoon on the return hike, as shadows creep across the narrow valley:
The red slope reveals iron presence:
Another picturesque bog pond as we approach the switchbacks back up into the late-afternoon sunlight:
Farewell for now to the mountains!
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
