Beautiful day. Excellent hiking conditions. I did not read the trail description before we started , witch was good,I probably had taken twin lakes trail.I should have mist this beautiful trail. the snow fields we had to cross were melted down to a minimum,doable even on sandals!{not recommend} The last part of the trail was confusing,we lost the trail a couple of times ,i should say as soon as the trail get lost in to the boulders go back,the view is not a lot better if you climb all the way up to the hill.

A trail to get up close and personal with the glaciers on Mt Baker... Mid week is a little quieter, week ends, folks big and little mosey out to the first view point ( the cutoff for the Chain Lakes Loop), and further out along the ridge. Colors are starting to fade, but still glow in the late afternoon light. 14 Goat lakes are still mostly ice covered.... and the goats keep to their own space, at a distance... Distant ridge lines to gawk at at in every direction....

Fall colors are out and there are berries for picking. Saw 3 mountain goats today, 2 of them crossing over one of the foot paths on a snow field. There are several small snowfields to cross along the duration of the trail. Note that if you start early in the morning as we did, the first snow field was frozen solid into ice which can be slippery. In the afternoon, it was a non-issue and had softened up considerably.

From the junction with the Chain Lakes Trail, the trail to Ptarmigan Ridge drops, crossing below some patches of snow that were flowing with meltwater when we passed in late morning. We scaled a couple of snowfields to attain the ridge, where luscious blueberries abounded. We continued along the east side of the ridge through more berries, then rocks and patches of snow, traversing around Point 5841. With Coleman Pinnacle now in sight, we stopped near a couple of trees, the only shade along this part of the trail. Again, sweet blueberries were plentiful. After lunch, we continued traversing, rounding Coleman Pinnacle and bypassing a side trail that explores the basin just south of the Pinnacle. We climbed up to a saddle due west of the Pinnacle, where we were able to see views both north and south. The trail continuing on to the Sholes Glacier was very inviting, but because we had toured the Chain Lakes in the morning, we were now at our turn-around time. The extreme close-up view of Mt. Baker was tempered slightly by wispy white clouds surrounding the peak. They didn't look threatening; they just blocked the sun. Once back around Coleman Pinnacle, we saw that Mt. Shuksan still had some blue sky hugging the horizon around it and was finally well lit by the afternoon sun. If I had it to do over, I would skip the Chain Lakes and take the Ptarmigan Ridge Trail all the way to the Sholes Glacier.

Three members of the Whidbey Hiking Group drove to Artist Point and hiked the Ptarmigan Ridge trail to Camp Kiser. There are a few snow crossings but we did not consider them dangerous and did them without hesitation. (see pic below) Several places had water running down the trail, but no big problems here either. Despite the smoke from forest fires in Eastern Washington the views were spectacular and this is a great hike. Perhaps only a few weeks left to get up there before the snows might close the road. We estimated our hiking distance today at 10 miles round trip and probably about 1,400' of elevation gain.