Backpacking at Baker

I just had a great weekend camping between Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker and had to make a post to show off all the great pics we took. My boys and I started early on Friday and hiked from Artist Point around Table Mountain and found one of the last campsites at Mazama Lake. It was a bit overcast on Friday so we thought it would be the best night for some lake camping. After setting up camp and resting a bit we headed up to visit the other chain lakes and climbed the saddle to try and see Mount Shuksan. This was one of those days where it looked awesome but the clouds always seemed to be covering a bit of the mountain so I didn’t get any frameable pics. Luckily, we didn’t have that problem the rest of the weekend. That night, the flies and mosquitos bothered us a lot so we went to bed early.

Saturday, we packed up camp quickly because of the bugs and hiked up towards Mount Baker. The trail was up and down with a lot of scree and a few snow patches along Ptarmigan ridge. We got to the camping area early enough to nab the best site- protected from the wind by some of the only trees but still have views of Baker and Shuksan. We were around 6000 feet and there was a few snow patches around where we could still filter some drinking water from the runoff. No bugs on the ridge! We were worn out but still did some hiking around the viewpoint after setting up our tents, and got some great pics after the clouds burned off. The sunset and sunrise the next morning didn’t give us much color, but we still had some great mountain shots. Sunday we hiked out quickly and zoomed down the mountain early enough to have brunch in Bellingham by 11am.

We all agreed that this was probably the best backpack we have ever been on and we all are eager to try to squeeze some more hikes in this summer. It was also great to enjoy hanging out with my boys. With our current nomading around the world, I miss the conversation and humor of these guys and need to make time for outings like this. I can still keep up with my boys, but my body is really feeling it today. I will need a couple of days to recover after about 25 miles of hiking altogether. Lots of photos to choose from but the following are my favs.