Skyline Divide — Friday, Jul. 25, 2003

North Cascades > Mount Baker Area

Great rewards for such a short hike. John and I ditched the rest of our tournament playing soccer buddies to preserve our injured legs for next week's hike on the Wonderland trail. Instead, we headed here for flowers and views. We weren't disappointed. After a 2 mile climb through the trees, we hit the meadows and the views, which expanded with every step. We got to a sidetrail, dropped our daypacks, and wandered to the left through fields of flowers. Lots of lupine, some paintbrush (both white and Indian), and tons of other flowers whose names I can't remember. We got back on the main trail kept going to the very end (another 2 miles or so) to Chowder Basin. Sat by a nice waterfall and shared our lunch with about 1 million black flies and mosquitoes. We did not climb the ridge above Chowder Basin because we missed the trail on the way in. For those looking for it, go right at the confusing intersection at the start of the ridge and scramble into the trees -- it apparently starts there. We did hit the knoll on the way back, however. The views were tremendous. Funny thing about this hike is that we had no idea that our first stopping point was actually Skyline Ridge. It was so short, we just assumed that we couldn't possibly be there so quickly. The nice thing was that there were plenty of places to wander!