Late September is a wonderful time to go hiking in the Washington Cascades. Temperatures are mild, biting insects are rare, the crowds are gone, and the huckleberries are ripe.
Rainbow Ridge branches eastward from point 5533' on the Lava Divide Ridge, 6 miles east of Mount Baker. The trail is described in 100 Hikes in the North Cascades. A quarter mile beyond point 4817', the trail ends and an ice ax becomes useful to negotiate steep heather and snowfields. The reward is a magnificent view of Mount Baker and the Park Glacier.
Rainbow Glacier flowing down the east flank of Mount Baker, terminates at 4280' (end of valley). Avalanche Gorge was carved by Pleistocene glaciers. Today, Rainbow Creek meanders down the valley floor, 1900' deep at this vantage point. The view is looking north from point 4825' at 10:45 AM.
The huckleberries were excellent. Mount Shuksan (9131') dominates the background. The Sulphide Glacier is on its right skyline while the Upper Curtis Glacier is below the cliffs leading to the summit pyramid. This view is looking northeast from 5300' at noon.
The Park Glacier descends eastward from the summit of Mount Baker (10781') in a grand sweep down to its rock-slide covered terminus at 4200'. Above the terminus, the southern portion of the glacier terminates in 100 ft high ice cliffs above Park Cliffs. This view is from western point 5680+' looking west at 1:30 PM.
This graph summarizes our trip. The horizontal axis is 24 hour Pacific Standard Time. These data were logged by an altimeter watch. Our fastest hours were 1000 ft/hour at 10:00 AM and -1100 ft/hr at 3:25 PM.
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Date created: 2002.11.24
Last modified: 2002.11.24
Copyright © 2002, Walter A. Siegmund
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