Towering trees on the way up to Church Mountain. Photo by Alain Towner.

All congregants of nature are invited to attend this Church. But hallelujah, it's a tough calling! While the trail is built well, it switchbacks like there's no tomorrow. The scenery is heavenly, but with over 3700 vertical feet to climb there's a little hell to pay on the way. It's worth the sacrifice, though. From the old lookout site just beneath Church Mountain's impressive steeple-like summit, a promised land of North Cascades beauty abounds.

Start off easy enough on an old road turned delightful trail. But after an easy 0.5 mile of minimal elevation gain, ascending begins with a vengeance. At least the old-growth canopy makes prospects for overheating minimal. Occasional holes in the green cloak reveal the North Fork Nooksack River roaring below.

Traversing southern slopes, the lower half of this trail often melts out by late spring. By late summer however, it can be quite dry-pack plenty of water. At 2.5 miles, after seemingly endless climbing, the grade eases up and the forest cover thins. At 3 miles emerge into an open basin (elev. 4800 ft) beneath Church's spires. Meadows! Wildflowers! Look at them all - paintbrush, buttercup, columbine, violets, lousewort, saxifrage, stonecrop, cinquefoil, lupine, penstemon, lilies, asters, bistort, and valerian.

Soon the trail crosses Deer Horn Creek in a boggy orchid-strewn swale. Then it's back to business. In heather parklands and steep meadowy slopes, the trail works its way out of the basin. Be careful here, as the trail is subject to slumping. Making a long switchback, the trail enters a small rocky upper basin where snow often lingers into August.

Just beneath the craggy ridge crest, the trail heads west to angle under and up and over some rocky sections. Pass the ruins of a shed and an old precariously placed privy before making the final push to a 6100-foot knoll. Just beneath Church's summit spires (reserved for climbers and angels), this airy point (keep children, dogs, and the vertigo-inclined nearby) was once blessed with a fire lookout. The views, however, remain-and they're divine.

Look south to Shuksan, Baker and the Skyline Divide, the Twin Sisters, and all the way to Rainier; west to the San Juans; and east across the verdant and craggy High Divide. North it's Canyon Ridge, big beautiful British Columbia, and straight below, in a snowbound basin, the Kidney Lakes.