Sharon and I found time in August of '73 to backpack the moraine near Mt. Baker's Easton glacier. The trail is called the Railroad Grade and begins on the Baker Lake side of Mt. Baker. It is about a seven to ten-mile roundtrip hike with about 3000 feet elevation gain.
To save money, I bought a bulk loader and film canisters and loaded my own film for use in my Nikon 35mm. The film I loaded for this trip had a color shift probably due to heat. The bulk loader also left scratches on the film as I loaded the canister. When I scanned the slides, I converted them to black and white. Too bad. It was a very scenic area and we had great weather.
Rocky Creek was dry when we crossed it.
Sharon with her pack leads the way up the switchbacks.
At the end of the switchbacks, Sharon looks for the trail in the late summer snow patch.
If I remember the situation correctly, we carried our packs to a campsite high on the moraine. As we were setting up camp we were swarmed by black flies. Sharon hated the situation and teared up. We gathered our gear and returned to the Park Butte Trail and searched for a bug free campsite. It worked.
That afternoon we returned to the moraine after setting up camp and enjoyed the spectacular views of Baker, Easton Glacier, and the Baker Lake valley.
Sharon's view of Easton Glacier.
Our day's campsite had a great view of Baker.
Not very often did we build a campfire. It was probably needed to help keep the bugs away.
It was supposed to be a three day trip but because of the bugs we cut out a day and returned to Bellingham.
No comments:
Post a Comment