Escaping the Pit of Misery - Heliotrope Ridge, 8.14.18
First let me explain my title. From past posts of my excursions, you have come to know my great friend and hiking partner Greg who is my neighbor. In those posts, he has been referred to as “Neighbor Greg” and shall remain so. However, my life got more complicated when my dear friend Cindy started seeing a guy named Greg who just happens to like hiking, photography and Porcupine Tree (for those that know). Greg’s last name is Dilley so for simplicity’s sake and clarification, he will be “Dilley” in this and any future posts he is involved in. So for those of you who never watch TV, in a pretty dumb Bud Lite commercial, the medieval king is always toasting with “Dilly Dilly” and those who displease him go to the Pit of Misery. So to make a very long story short, because this is the first time Dilley and I have hiked alone together, the title is partly a shoutout to Dilley and partly that we were escaping the horrible smoky heat in the city, opting instead to head for the hills.
Heliotrope Ridge is actually two hikes that start from the same trailhead. Six years ago Bridgit and I did one of the trails and at the time I always said I must go back and do the other trail. Today was that day. We left Lake Stevens at 5:45AM and hit the trail about 8:15. It was still pleasantly cool as we hiked up a nice forest trail for a couple of miles. Soon we came to a junction where the two trails split off. The one that Bridgit and I had done back in 2012 is a climbers trail that heads straight up the narrow spine of a ridge to climbers camps just below the upper glaciers on Mount Baker. Dilley and I took the other trail which gently climbs along Glacier Creek and then crosses over to the other side.
Me
Dilley
The problem is that there is no bridge across the creek. With the high heat and being mid summer, today the creek was raging pretty hard. We knew we had to ford the creek ahead of time so we brought water sandals for the task. The crossing wasn’t too bad. I was glad I had poles and only had to step straight into the creek for a couple of steps, but it was just swift and deep enough to make it feel like more of an adventure.
Dilley fording Glacier Creek
Once over Glacier Creek we meandered up and over through rocky meadows, over two more small creeks and suddenly we were on the edge of a giant lateral moraine, staring at the massive Coleman Glacier with the Roosevelt Glacier stretching off in the distance.
Coleman Glacier
It was an amazing sight that almost took my breath away. A lateral moraine is a steep wall of dirt and rock debris shoved to each side of a glacier as it carves its way down a mountain. We decided to follow the edge of the moraine up higher. With each few feet the views got better and better and we stopped at a rock outcropping above a beautiful waterfall directly above the glacial ice for lunch.
Our lunch spot. Not too shabby! (photo courtesy of Dilley)
As I sometimes tend to do for special hiking occasions, I had packed in two beers on ice to celebrate a new hiking partnership. After hoofing it uphill for several hours, a cold beer is quite a treat and I think Dilley was pretty happy.
After the beer
There were a couple of nice flat spots for tents where we stopped for lunch with a good water source from a glacial stream close by surrounded by flowers. It would be really cool to camp here when the fire smoke clears to get the evening light on the glacier and Mount Baker above.
Camp stream
Farther off beyond the Coleman Glacier was the Roosevelt Glacier. It too was heavily crevassed and looked like a wild place.
Zoom of the Roosevelt Glacier
At times you can actually hear the glacier creak and shift. Just an incredible place to be!
Zoom of crevasses and seracs
Way up high near the top of the glacier were huge ice seracs or pinnacles. It’s hard to comprehend the forces that form these beautiful jagged pillars of ice.
Zoom of seracs
Due to the smoke from many forest fires and the fact that I was shooting into the sun made it very hard to see Mount Baker itself. It did get a bit better as the sun shifted towards mid-day.
Baker in the haze above the Coleman Glacier
So for all this we hiked a total of only six miles and gained about 1,800’ of elevation. And much to our delight, the huckleberries are ripe for the pickin’! Time to get out the berry containers and plan a berry pickin’ expedition! Dilly Dilly indeed!
A palm reader would see Huckleberry pie in my future!