A few weeks ago, on a rare free weekend that we didn’t have anything booked, Devon and I loaded up the car with our favorite snacks (and our favorite adventure buddy Simon) and headed out to Mt. Baker. We’ve been dying to explore this area of the North Cascades more. Since neither of us are big skiiers, we hadn’t spent much time up here, but we’d been trying all summer to squeeze in a few hikes in the area in the midst of busy season. Even though the clouds were pretty thick at home in Seattle and the weather looked distinctly unpromising, we decided to head out there anyway. We started our day at Artist Point. The last several visits we’d made there had all been very, very snowy and *very* foggy, so we were shocked to see completely sunny, bluebird skies and unbelievably gorgeous views of Mt. Baker and Shuskan for the first time. It’s truly an astounding area.
Once we finished up some easier, shorter, dog-friendly trails, our pup Simon was pretty tuckered out (he’s almost 13yrs old, so he doesn’t quite hike as far as he used to!) We had just a few hours before the sun was going to set, so on a lark, but we decided to try and hit a trail we’ve been dyyyyyying to hike this summer. We’d tried on three separate occasions to get up to the top, but bad weather, impassable roads, and late lingering snowbanks had turned us around every time.
This particular trail is very remote, has a very short hiking season (July-September) and has been subjected to a lot of social media popularity and overuse lately, so I won’t be sharing the location on here, but it was the North Cascades like I have NEVER seen them. It’s probably my favorite hike we’ve ever done in all of Washington, which is really saying something. We hiked up the very steep, but relatively short trail as the sun set over beautiful and clear views of the North Cascades that stretched into Canada, with Mt. Baker looming over the whole landscape. It was truly an unbelievable thing to witness, and well worth the hike back down in the darkness to our car.
Needless to say, if anyone is looking for an unbelievable, gorgeous location to elope in the North Cascades, we’d be over-the-moon to return to this spot with a couple for their elopement day.
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