Chattermarks

What is a summit experience?  For the 10th cohort of graduate students  in NCI’s residency program, the 9-day backpacking trip that culminated their first quarter of graduate school was a summit experience, both literally and figuratively.  This year the cohort split into two groups, with six students and one instructor with each group.  Team veg started on the East Bank Trail of Ross Lake, climbing Desolation Peak on their fourth day.  Team bourbon started on the west side of Ross Lake, hiking through old growth forests and over Big Beaver Pass.  On the 5th day, Gerry Cook of the National Park Service met us with the MULE to transport each team to the other side of the lake.  Team bourbon then hiked Desolation Peak and backpacked out along the East Bank Trail.  Unfortunately, an injury on team veg necessitated an evacuation.  The team decided to stick together and continue learning about the North Cascades through front-country camping experiences in the Methow Valley.  While the two groups had very different experiences, all students finished their trips elated, exhausted and in desperate need of showers!  Here are reflections from each student about the experience….

» Continue reading Summer’s summit

Every North Cascades Wild trip is special, from the deep bonds formed in new communities of friends to the service projects to students’ self-discovery and leadership development to views of glacier-capped mountains seen from sweatily climbed mountain peaks to learning how to canoe to the close connections students feel to public lands by the end of their adventure.

But North Cascades Wild Trip 3 was something completely new and different. After completing twenty successful North Cascades Wild trips in the Ross Lake area of North Cascades National Park, Trip 3 ventured out July 19th through 30th for twelve days of canoe camping, backpacking and service projects in a new location for us in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

What was so special about our North Cascades Wild trip on Baker Lake and in the Mount Baker NRA? Here are some of our favorite moments:

» Continue reading Getting Wild with the US Forest Service

Oh, to be young and wild and free. That common saying, which most of us recognize, is wholly applicable to the wilderness of the North Cascades and of the youth adventures carried out by the first two trips of this summer’s North Cascades Wild program.

After spending 12 days exploring North Cascades National Park (NOCA) by boat and boot, through canoeing and backpacking, 17 students and six instructors, each divided into two trips, had quite the journey to recount.

(Title) Canoeing is a core component of the youth program North Cascades Wild (Above) Trip 1 dressed to impress at Ross Lake Resort

Trip 2 goes wild for NC Wild at Ross Lake Resort

» Continue reading Young, WILD and free

As much as we love North Cascadian landscapes — and with over 7,000,000 acres of protected public lands in Washington and British Columbia, there will never be an end to options for explorations — we here at the Institute are still called to visit and experience other amazing places on our planet. We’ll publish accounts of some of the places NCI staff and graduate students visit in our new Road Trip series…

My first 2010 trip away from the Salish Sea occured in May when I caught the Keystone Ferry for Port Townsend and spent a solo week in Olympic National Park, hiking, paddling and observing the emerging lushness of spring.

My first destination was Lake Ozette in the far northwestern corner of the state. I posted up at a nearly-empty campground on the northshore, dropped my sea kayak on to the lake and paddled a couple of hours south to a remote backcountry campsite at Erickson’s Bay. I was lucky to have decent, stable weather, no wind and Ozette — the third largest lake in the state — all to myself. Trails from the bay, as well as from the northshore campground, wind 3 miles through coastal forests, prairies and the remains of homesteads to the wild Pacific coast, where one can explore tidepools, view sea stacks, observe seabirds and seals and search for migrating grey whales and the famous Wedding Rocks pictographs.

» Continue reading Road Trip: The Olympic Peninsula

The transition from spring to summer has been a long awaited and hopeful one to those of us living in the Pacific Northwest this year.

This past week, our hopes have finally been fulfilled as the summer sun no longer conceals itself from behind overcast skies and the snow so prevalent upon the high peaks surrounding North Cascades Institute‘s Environmental Learning Center melts away to reveal the rocks of this rugged landscape. One of the best ways to take in and experience the summer in the North Cascades and Skagit Valley is to go hiking, to see places you have not seen before!

As a way to welcome the season of summer in the North Cascades and Skagit Valley, several staff, graduate students, and board members of North Cascades Institute hope to inspire you to enjoy this beautiful onset of summer weather by sharing their favorite hikes in the region of the Skagit Valley and North Cascades.

Ptarmigan Ridge Traverse – Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest

A favorite trail, after 40 years and perhaps 400 hikes! An impossible task! Nonetheless, one favorite takes me out the east face of Table Mountain from Artist Point, then onto Ptarmigan Ridge. The trail winds along the ridge, slowly rising as it traverses the east slope of Coleman Pinnacle, then winds around to Lasciocarpa Ridge and ends at The Portals. Pass through The Portals and step onto a Mount Baker glacier. The scenery on this hike—when it is not cloaked in fog and cloud—is simply amazing! On the way out, Mt. Shuksan looms over the left shoulder and Mt. Baker soars upward straight ahead. Marmots whistle and pikas squeak. Pink and yellow monkeyflowers nod over the trickles and seeps, and groves of lupine wave in the mountain breeze. If you know where to look, mountain goats are nearly guaranteed, resting in small groups in the meadows (or on snowfields on hot summer days), the nannies and kids in small herds, the billies solitary on shaded ledges in unlikely places often high on the rock walls and ridges. A winter trip out this trail is also possible, with skis the best way to go and always with an avalanche transponder. The winter scenery is fantastic, but the risks are a bit greater. Lots of people make it part way out this trail in late summer and fall. The section along the east face of Table Mountain is perhaps the most heavily traveled trail in the entire North Cascades, but most do not go beyond the fork to Chain Lakes. If you don’t want to share this remarkable place, go in winter, but do go!

~John Miles, North Cascades Institute Board Member