A longtime favorite!  I've included 5min of video highlights below..  

Road & Trail: no issues at all  

Wildflowers: mainly pearly everlasting, some clinging to the cliffs in seemingly impossible places  

Fall Foliage: berry & ash shrubs just starting to turn  

Barries: tons of ripe blueberries  

Crowds: saw about a dozen others on the trail.  Parking lot mostly empty at dawn, then over half full by noon on this weekday.

Hiked Table Mountain 9/9. I got a late start on a sunny Tuesday.  The parking lot at Artist Point was almost full, with evidence on the drive up that it had been completely full.  Not too many heading up Table Mountain in the afternoon.  After some rainy days it was amazingly clear sky.  There were peaks in the distance, I think probably Glacier Peak?  The hiking guide describes the trail as “treacherous” and that is definitely the case.  I can understand why dogs are not allowed  I didn’t make it to the top, many, many side trails and tricky to find the main trail.  The clear skies made for great views with so much definition of colored rock faces in the distance - red, gray and white.  Pictures do not do this justice.

VERY important to have good sturdy boots and sticks.  It got windy, which was kind of nerve wracking as the wind seemed to be particularly strong when on a cliff side ledge.  Would not do this hike in rain or any possibility of ice. 

Plan to do this again - start earlier and bring instructions of how to stay on the main trail.  Even though this is short, it is slow going for some sections.  Easy to add Chain Lakes or Lake Ann or several other trails to make a day of the trip.

The rocky path carved into the side of this mountain is very impressive. Another sunset hike, another astoundingly beautiful end-of-day glow. I had the entire place to myself and couldn’t have asked for a better end to the evening.

We did the Chain Lakes loop on this sunny busy Saturday and then did the Table Mountain hike as an add-on as I hadn't ever actually been up there. 

Short and sweet and dramatic. Starting from the parking lot you see this cliff ahead and until you see people up on it you might not believe the trail actually goes up there, but it does! Definitely some exposure although in general the short trail is wide enough that you don't feel you are teetering too close to the edge. We went a bit past the first big lump to the somewhat narrower part of the ridge and soaked in the big views up there. 

On the way down poles are really helpful as some of the tread is pretty loose and along with the exposure makes for a slightly nerve wracking descent. A few snow patches on top but not on the way up, 

I tried these trails in February 2024 but there was a high avalanche risk, so I didn’t get much beyond Artist Point snowshoe. I spend a lot of time at Baker but only in winter. It was great to see lakes with water instead of just ice.

Table Mountain

15 cars in the Artist Point trailhead at 6am but some left when the photographers had finished with sunrise. This has to have the highest reward:effort ratio of any trail. I was expecting a rough scramble but the trailmakers have constructed tight switchbacks and some ingenious rock steps. I kept waiting for the hard parts but I was on that easternmost rock before I realized I was at the top.

The top surface of Table Mountain was mostly snow. I would normally recommend sticking to the trail but doing that today meant trampling fragile bog plants. The snow is a better bet – it’s firm, I didn’t posthole at all, and walking on the snow gets you to the whole of the top. It’s not table-top flat but it’s a gentle gradient upward from east to west.

Baker and Shuksan were out in full sunrise glory and those little tarns at the western side have just melted and are looking pretty. When you get to the western end, you see why the maintained trail goes up the eastern side. It’s a long way down to those lakes. Not much need for mapping apps on Table Mountain because it’s kind of obvious where you go.

I got back to Artist Point before 8am so my coffee was still hot as I had a break before tackling Ptarmigan. There was a wedding party having a photo session. Great scenery for that but some of the wedding party were wearing glittery, floor-length dresses and their struggles with the trailhead bathrooms were epic.

Ptarmigan Ridge

The Ptarmigan Ridge trail was a different story. You need some kind of mapping and there’s a range of difficult snow conditions.

The first section is a spectacular traverse high on the slope of Table Mountain. No real difficulty and no snow (except for a little bit right near Artist Point). From the turn-off to Chain Lakes you have a significant downhill. Then, as you pass northwest of what All Trails informs me is Happy Bunny Butte, the snow starts. It was firm enough today but snow bridges are forming and postholing will become an issue. Difficult to know what to bring for the snow. I had crampons, which I put on and took off three times before stashing them back in my pack. The problem is that there are many stretches of snow to cross but they’re all short. Maybe just bring poles.

As you leave the buttes, the trail turns south and a fabulous view of Shuksan opens up. At this point, the trail goes Kendall Katwalk on you and gives you some steep snow traverses (see picture). At a sharp turn to the west, Coleman Pinnacle becomes visible. Here you get a fabulous view of the American Alps to the south. When you start going north-west, the density and diversity of wildflowers reaches its height. More snow traverses, turn south-west and you start going down to Camp Kiser. A party of seven was camped there.

At 10am clouds started rolling in. Mr. Baker closed the curtains and retired from public life and Shuksan did the same half an hour later. The last section of the trail to East Portal is very difficult to find so your routefinding apps are necessary. East Portal is the most vertiginous place for lunch. I don’t usually have a fear of heights but looking west and down made me unable to balance for a while. It’s a spectacular place and the best bit was when the clouds rolled back for a moment to reveal Mt Baker and the crevasse-pitted Sholes Glacier.

I think only one other person made it to the end today. It’s a very different experience from Chain Lakes and the Table Mountain trails.

Chain Lakes

All I did was go to Iceberg Lake from the Chain Lakes/Ptarmigan Ridge Junction, then back to Artist Point.

Just one point about staring the Chain Lakes loop from Artist Point – right after you start, there’s a steep section of snow that doesn’t fit with the anyone-can-do-it reputation of the trail. It will melt out in two weeks but today a lot of people were turning away from the hike because it seemed like a dead end. I spent quite a bit of time as I was starting and finishing using All Trails to convince people that it really was the right trail. After that little bit, it’s not difficult.