The North Cascades offer some of North America’s most spectacular mountain scenery, with more peaks that rise 3,000 feet in the last horizontal mile to their summits than any other range on Earth. But these mountains—in addition to their dramatic topography—also offer sublime intimacies: incandescent moss gardens, snow-melt pools reflecting the sky, twisted Krumholtz trees clinging to the fractured rock, …
Read More »Tag Archives: Lake Ann
Mt. Baker’s Best Hikes: Five Unforgettable Trails
The Cascade Range extends for 700 miles from Northern California to Southern British Columbia. It is a momentous mountain wonderland, with enough beauty spots to occupy many lifetimes of inspired wandering. But in my view, informed by decades of high-country rambling, the apex of all this high-mountain ecstasy can be found along the Mt. Baker Highway. Here are five special …
Read More »Autumn in the North Cascades
In 1976 I planned my first trip to the Pacific Northwest. With two friends, I hitchhiked from Eastern Pennsylvania to Cascade Locks in Oregon and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) south to Crater Lake. I borrowed a friend’s Nikkormat camera for the trip and tried hard to capture the look and feel of what I saw. Since that first …
Read More »Reimagining the Wilderness
It’s happened to all of us. You head up to Heliotrope Ridge or Lake Ann for a refreshing hike. At the trailhead, you hang your Northwest Forest Pass from your rearview mirror to show you paid for parking. Like a good citizen, you sign in at the trailhead, just in case. You write down how many are in your party …
Read More »The Magic of the Equinox: Photography by Buff Black
Of the two equinoxes – spring and fall – it’s the time around the autumnal equinox that I seem to photograph more. As summer hands off to fall, and the kids are back in school, my ‘backcountry brethren’ and I head to the North Cascades for our annual backpack adventure. It’s an egalitarian time of the year, with all the world having the same …
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