August 2, 2018

The first half of the week we backpacked to Ice Lake. Originally our plan for the second half of the week was to head to the Blue Mountains west of Baker City. But the forecast called for a lot of smoke there so we decided to head north into Washington instead. (Later we would learn that the forecast was wrong and the smoke cleared out of that area.)

After a very long day of driving across Washington we crossed Stevens Pass on Highway 2 and pulled into the Beckler River Campground where we grabbed a campsite (boy, it’s so much easier to find a place to camp on a weekday than on a Friday night!)

The forecast today called for partly sunny, which in the mountains usually means “mostly cloudy, so forget about any views.” So we decided to hike the Iron Goat Trail, a nice interpretive trail that was brought about thanks to the efforts of the now defunct Volunteers for Outdoor Washington, and others. (A wonderful guidebook can be found online.) A sign at the trailhead informed us:

In 1990 Volunteers for Outdoor Washington established a partnership with the USDA Forest Service to construct, maintain, and interpret the Iron Goat Trail. Many other organizations worked with them in this endeavor. Hundreds of volunteers working thousands of hours built the Iron Goat Trail.

This big red caboose greets hikers at the trailhead:

Interpretive signs at the trailhead explained how John F. Stevens looked for a railroad route over the Cascades by following creek after creek to its headwaters and encountering a lot of impenetrable terrain. He finally identified a promising route over the pass that would later bear his name. The Great Northern Railway opened the new rail line in 1893; it was considered a great engineering feat. They employed the use of switchbacks, tunnels, and snowsheds to get their trains safely through Stevens Pass.

It wasn’t an easy job, though. When coal-fired steam engines got stuck in a tunnel the exhaust could overpower the passengers and crew.

In one disastrous incident, nearly all of the passengers and crew were overcome by exhaust. With the engineer and most of the passengers unconscious, a crew member was able to unlock the brakes and roll the train back out of the tunnel, narrowly averting a tragedy.

After that the tunnel section was electrified. But that wasn’t the only problem. After 96 passengers and crew were killed when an avalanche swept two snow-bound trains off the tracks in February 1910, the Great Northern built seven miles of snowsheds and tunnels to protect their trains. But the cost of maintaining them and keeping the line open in winter led to the construction of the 7.8-mile-long Cascade Tunnel at a lower elevation, which was completed in 1929. The completion of the Cascade Scenic Highway in 1925 allowed cars to also travel this route.

We started off in a green forest:

We soon came to one of the walls of an old snowshed, which was a third of a mile long. The Great Northern built 6.4 miles of snowsheds along 9 miles of track to protect their trains from avalanches. This one was built in 1913, and although the wooden roof and second wall are long gone, this concrete wall remains:

The first of several tunnels we would encounter:

This little “tunnel” is called and adit and was used to gain access to the center of the train tunnel:

We passed the Twin Tunnels.

Obviously most of these are not safe to enter anymore:

I loved this footbridge:

We took the Corea Crossover Trail which went uphill and connected to the upper part of the old rail line, then headed back east. We followed a spur trail to this timber spillway that was built in 1910 as part of the Great Northern’s fire protection system. It was accidentally discovered by a work party in 1910:

The vegetation opened up and we got some views of nearby mountains:

This tunnel was filled with debris from a rockslide above:

Passing another snowshed wall with views beyond:

This rock arch was strange. There was no sign here telling us what it was.

Between 1892 and 1913 trains had to slow to a crawl as they rounded Windy Point. But when the Windy Point Tunnel was finished in 1913 the trains could travel faster. The quarter-mile-long tunnel reduced the curvature, shortened the distance, and protected trains from avalanches.

Before we took the connector trail back down to the lower trail we took a side trip and went out to Windy Point where we could look down on Highway 2 and the current railroad tracks as they entered the 7.8-mile-long Cascade Tunnel. According to the sign, “it was completed in 1929 by thousands of laborers working around the clock for three years.”

An iPhone Pano of the scene below:

For some reason there was a composting toilet at the viewpoint:

Then we took the long steep Windy Point Crossover Trail back down to the lower trail and to our car. Nice little hike! Seven miles total. Once again the forecast was wrong and it ended up being a whole lot sunnier than they said it would be. We would have had views if we had done a hike up to a peak. But this historical hike was still interesting.

2015 Trip, Day 5: Wednesday, August 19

The smoke from yesterday had not cleared from the Snoqualmie Pass area today, much to our sadness.

I was feeling incredibly discouraged. So far our vacation had involved a whole lot of worrying over what the conditions would bring each day. Every day we were making lots of phone calls to ranger stations and checking online for weather forecasts, fire conditions, and smoke reports. Now after 24 hours of smoke there was still an air quality advisory through the next day for the Snoqualmie Pass area. After making a phone call to the Glacier Public Information Center, Greg suggested we head to the Mt. Baker area, which was currently experiencing clear skies. So we headed north.

We had expected to spend the last three days of our trip backpacking, but we weren’t doing that now. So we needed more groceries for car camping and stopped at the Woolley Market in Sedro-Woolley. Also got some sandwiches for lunch.

Since we hadn’t planned on going to Mt. Baker, we hadn’t brought any of our books and maps with us. I downloaded hike descriptions to my phone and then we stopped at the ranger station in town to buy a few maps.

The Mt. Baker area was indeed clear and we enjoyed a sunny drive along Highway 542. We arrived at the Silver Fir Campground (the only campground in the area, not including the Douglas Fir Campground that’s 20 minutes back in the other direction) only to find no empty campsites. Well, there were empty campsites, but we couldn’t use them. Some people had reserved sites but then failed to show up and use them. The Weebers here were one such group.

Just before leaving the campground, we happened to see the Hoodoo camp host who is stationed at Douglas Fir Campground and also looks after Silver Fir. We told him we were looking for a campsite and he said the campground had been full for weeks, then turned away to finish cleaning the bathroom. Good grief. Hoodoo employees, in my experience, are some of the most unhelpful people! (We found out the next day that people are allowed to camp in the campground’s day use area when all the sites are full. No one had yet claimed the day use area and we could have taken it, but Mr. Unhelpful failed to mention that to us.)

On the map we saw a campsite symbol at Hannegan Pass so we headed up there. The road is a pothole-plagued mess, but when we got to the end we did indeed find a few campsites and we snagged one:

It was only 4:30 so Greg suggested we drive up to Artist Point and do the short hike up Table Mountain. So we drove back down the potholed road, then drove the curvy winding road up to Artist Point. When we got there I felt like doing a jig. We finally made it to Artist Point! When we visited this area in July 2010 the snow melted really late that year and Artist Point was inaccessible. When we visited last year it was raining and we didn’t even bother driving up there. Third time’s the charm! The evening light on Mt. Shuksan was divine.

Rugged mountains north of Mt. Shuksan:

Heading up to Table Mountain:

Some sections of the trail cling to the side of the mountain. See Greg on the left?

We reached a viewpoint that we thought was the summit, but it wasn’t. It actually proved to have the best views, we would later discover. It also had tons of annoying “rock art” stacks.

We kept going across the plateau towards the true summit, which we needn’t have done, it turns out. We lost the trail at one point and just headed cross country.

The point we designated as our turnaround point was not really the summit, but the views weren’t going to get better than we already had, so we called it good. Nice view of Mt. Baker:

Looking down the length of the plateau that is Table Mountain:

The jagged peaks of North Cascades National Park:

Glacier Peak to the south:

And of course a fabulous view of Mt. Shuksan:

Some panorama shots from my iPhone:

All the peaks to the south of us were somewhat shrouded in smoky haze:

A shot from the way down, with Mt. Baker in the background:

When we got back down to the car sunset was already well underway. We had wanted to photograph sunset at Picture Lake, back down the road a bit from Artist Point, so got in the car and headed down there. We needn’t have bothered though. Winds often calm down in the evening, but they didn’t today and the lake was not doing any reflecting:

Screw the lake. I’ll focus on the mountain:

Earlier at Artist Point we talked to a nice woman named Suzanne who told us about seeing amazing stars the night before, and even a bit of the northern lights. We wanted to stay and see the stars, but our pots, pans, and stove for making a car camping dinner were back at the campsite. Fortunately all our backpacking gear and food was in the car, so after driving back to Artist Point from the lake we made dinner backpacking style. I don’t think we’ve ever used our JetBoil in a parking lot before:

We sat in the car and ate our dinners as dusk fell:

We were glad we stayed because the stars were a sight to see!

We got to bed pretty late that night (11:30), but it was worth it!

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