Ben & Star's Excellent Adventure: Ptarmigan Ridge Hike

On Tuesday, July 23rd, we took off on a 24 mile ride up the Mt. Baker Highway to Artists Point. Along the way we stopped at Nooksack Falls, which is at a little non-descript pull off one mile down a gravel road. The most powerful falls I’ve seen, felt, or heard since Lower Yellowstone Falls. It really thunders, and from our vantage point, appeared to drop into the depths of the earth.

We continued up the Baker Highway through forests of Douglas Firs, Hemlocks, and other trees. At mile marker 44, we pulled off the road just as the old bearded man (John Muir’s ghost?) had recommended at Grahams Store the night before. We found a forest full of these babies. Douglas Firs aren’t as big around as the great redwoods, but they are straight and extremely tall. We were told that some of the trees at mile marker 44 are close to 1,000 years old.

We have driven the Going to the Sun Road, Tioga Pass, and the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the last 10 miles of the Baker Highway holds its own with all of them. When we reached the parking lot at Artists Point, we were floored by the amount of snow remaining. Then again, this is the place that holds the World Record for most snowfall in one year at over 1,140 inches. Even the public toilets were still encased in snow.

Ptarmigan Ridge was our first hike of the trip. It is consistently ranked one of the Top 5 hikes in Washington State. Personally, the views top anything I have seen in any national park. The glaciers are shrinking but dwarf most of the ones we saw at Glacier National Park last summer. We crossed numerous large snowfields on a ridgeside until finally being stopped short of our destination before reaching the foot of Mount Baker. On the way back, Star unintentionally slid down a short 10 ft. snow bank. The damage was luckily only one scrape on her arm and a wet dirty bottom. This one was extremely challenging for a “warm up” hike.