Tag Archives: Mt. Shuksan

Hiking through the Cascades in autumn fills me with a quiet peace found nowhere else. The cool, crisp mountain air feels clean and alive, carrying a stillness that settles deep within. Each step along the trail quiets my thoughts, allowing me to take in the magical beauty surrounding me. Hillsides blaze with deep reds, golden yellows, and rich ambers—like wildflower …

Here in Western Washington, perpetual cycles of moisture-laden weather systems move inland from offshore, gifting the Cascades Mountain Range with a bounty of snow and rain that sustains the flora, fauna, and people of the region throughout the year. These images trace water’s dynamic journey from the Evergreen State’s icy mountaintops as it descends through creeks, lakes, waterfalls, and rivers …

Spring is timeless in the North Cascades. Where does it begin, and when does it end? Does it rise with the wildflowers on the eastern slopes and tumble with the last trickle of melted snow? Does that mean spring never arrives on the summit glaciers and never fades in the lupine fields? Is it the heat of the sun, the …

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, …

Twenty-five years ago, I moved to Bellingham, Washington to ski and pursue a degree at Western Washington University. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Mt. Baker was about to set a world record for snowfall. That first winter totally changed the course of my life. I instantly became hooked on the deep powder skiing and the rugged and seemingly endless …

As the snow begins to retreat in the North Cascades, and the color scheme ever so slowly shifts from white to green, I get the itch. Of course, having plied these North Cascades for numerous happy decades, I am used to waiting: there’s a lot of snow up there, and it melts out slowly, unveiling the verdant greenery in its …

We drove up the Baker Lake Road, each in our own car, past the gated campgrounds and shuttered ranger station. Above us the Mountain Gods —Kulshan and Shuksan—gleamed in the luminous winter sun, fresh snow dazzling against a cobalt-blue sky. I was sorely in need of a few days off the grid, and the weather window—a few consecutive days of …

I push forward through days spread out over decades. Days that have taken me into nearly every corner of the Cascade Mountains where snow weighs heavy on my shoulders, just as it does on the boughs of the evergreens that groan with each additional snowflake. Days where clouds open up and my place in the world is defined. Days spent …

To be at work and at play at the same time is to know inspiration. To labor with passionate commitment on something you believe in is to know fulfillment. But to simply awaken at 6521 feet to a dazzling sunrise is to experience the exalted treasure of one of Washington’s remaining fire lookouts. I became lookout chairman 14 years ago, …

 Inhospitable.  That’s it, in a word. Inhospitable. The word for today—and for this landscape. The three of us were working our way across the terrain of the North Cascades, ostensibly out here recreating but more accurately, persevering. Here in the shadows of the White Salmon Basin, the sun will not crest the north face of Mt. Shuksan for some hours …