Chattermarks

When I awoke the other morning to see a forest of snow-covered trees, I felt just as excited when I made the same discovery as a child in the winter season. A fresh layer of snow had fallen overnight, changing the already beautiful landscape of the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center into a wintery scene. It appeared to have only snowed an inch or two at the lower elevation, but I was just as happy as if it had snowed more.

The snow always lifts my spirits and I am compelled to get outside and play in the white stuff. Coincidentally, my fellow graduate students and I had previously arranged to spend the morning searching for animal signs and exploring our backyard near the Learning Center together before we departed for Thanksgiving break. With newly fallen snow, we were not sure if we would find many obvious signs of activity from our wildlife neighbors. We were fortunately proven wrong, and surprised at what we found.

» Continue reading Exploring Winter’s Arrival

By Jack McLeod, guest blogger

I recently took the Spirit of Place writing workshop at the Learning Center with Nick O’Conell. Here’s my story from that workshop about a trip to Sahale Glacier. This is the third program I’ve participated in at the Institute and they’ve all been wonderful — so thank you!

My tent shook violently. Straining its granite-bound guy lines, I was afraid it would release and pirouette like a wayward balloon to the valley 3,000’ below. An arc of stones only partly protected me from the midnight river of air as the tempest commanded our miniature snowbound island.

We had hiked to the realm of skydivers and found our rocky outpost was directly in the channel of atmospheric winds traveling from one side of Washington to the other. I’d waited 6 months for this date, a dark moonless night in the mountains and perfect venue for the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. But atmospheric forces make the ultimate decision around here and they threatened to blow us off the mountain. In the spirit of a long-ago boss’s mantra “we don’t have problems, we have challenges”, the question became could we turn nature’s uncontrollable forces into our hoped-for glorious experience?

The three of us intended to camp just below flower-covered Cascade Pass, an easy four-mile hike. Bob had minor backpacking experience, Brandon had none so we chose that site for its beauty and easy access. The ranger made sure we had the required bear canister to protect our food – and us. “You don’t want anything smelling of food, including your skin, pack, tent or clothes.” Ah, we thought, just why we went camping in the woods – to have meticulous hygiene. She also told us the forested, creek-side camp we planned to stay at for two nights was full. But there were still sites available at Sahale Glacier. What’s a couple more miles and a couple more thousand feet of climbing with a full pack? And no trees or tumbling stream. Camped next to ice. In August. We had come to get away from it all so the ranger’s only campsite choice became a perverse type of trip insurance. Little did we know how this change in locale would change everything about our experience.

The hike to the pass was uneventful – no slabs of ice came crashing down from cliff-hanging glaciers 2,000 feet above on Mt. Johannesburg – all the guidebooks mention this as a possibility. The route to our newly designated camp led across Sahale Arm, high above an ancient trade route between western and eastern Washington and on this day deep in blue and white candles of lupine and bistort. Indigenous travelers and traders crossed this pass between the lush, green forests of the Skagit River valley and the dry plains of the Columbia Plateau. A nearby archaeological site was dated to 9,600 years ago. Stone tool fragments were found but no signs of plastic bear canisters or 4 ounce isobutane stoves.

» Continue reading Sahale Stars

This is a time of transition.

The warm summer season is changing as rapidly into a drenching autumn as is my progression from the residency with North Cascades Institute to the academia of Western Washington University. As the leaves of vine maples alter their hues from green to orange, I find myself pulled from the slow-paced grandeur of North Cascades National Park to the fast-paced flurry of the city of Bellingham.

It seems as if during these transitions there is no definitive line that is crossed from one season to the other, no time to look back, only to move forward into the next, into another.

But even as the final two quarters of my graduate residency are about to commence and, in only a matter of six months, conclude themselves as well, I find myself already looking back, gazing out onto the memory-scape of this landscape, of this past year’s journey when I called the North Cascades my home. Here, I came full circle.

(Title) Waving goodbye to my North Cascades home (Above) Welcoming Bellingham

» Continue reading Coming full circle in the North Cascades

To explore your own backyards and expand your sense of place—this was the central goal of the 2010 North Cascades Wild’s (NC Wild) first fall day trip, held on Saturday, September 18th.

Sense of place. What is that? Ask any of this year’s students of NC Wild and they would be quick to tell you an answer. As one of the four core themes we emphasize in NC Wild, sense of place is embodied by a student’s increased awareness of and appreciation for the history—both through nature and culture—of a landscape. And the landscape of choice for September 18th’s day trip was that of Blue Lake and Dock Butte, in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

Easily bypassed for the more popular Mt. Baker National Recreation Area at Schreiber’s Meadows, tucked away among Pacific silver firs and Mountain hemlocks, Blue Lake and Dock Butte afford amazing access to subalpine flora and fauna, geology and hydrology, and astounding views of the North Cascades with only minimal effort.

(Title) Mt. Baker as viewed from the road ascending to the Blue Lake and Dock Butte trailhead (Above) Which way to chose? You can access both Blue Lake and Dock Butte from the same trailhead

» Continue reading NC Wild begins fall exploration

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