Baker River — Tuesday, Sep. 29, 2015

North Cascades > Mount Baker Area

With another great Fall day for hiking, we headed up to the end of Baker Lake and the Baker River Trail. From the large parking lot at the end of the Baker Lake Road we hiked up to the junction with the Baker Lake Trail at the suspension bridge across the river. We walked out on to the bridge for the views up and down the river. Then back to the trail up the Baker River. This is a nice hike through old growth forest of large red cedars and big leaf maples, and along the river. Plus the leaves are turning yellow and red. Years ago the trail went 8 miles up to Bald Eagle Creek, but nowadays the maintained trail only goes to Sulphide Creek which has a few camp sites for backpackers. The trail follows near the river, then goes up hill with views up the valley. It then drops back down to cross the new large log bridge over Lake Creek (outlet of Shuksan Lake) that replaced the former bridge washed out back in 2006. A little further the trail is again next to the river with views up and down stream. Then back into the forest with some ups and downs, passed some beaver ponds and then the North Cascades National Park boundary marker. The last 1/2 mile is through a forest of smaller conifer trees to Sulphide Creek Camp. We walked out on to the creek gravel bar with a view up stream to Mt. Shuksan. You would need to ford the creek in order to continue on the old unmaintained trail. After eating lunch another senior couple showed up. The guy told us he had first hiked up the Baker River Trail way back in 1970 when you could go further than Sulphide Creek. On the hike back out when we got to the area near the river a little before the Lake Creek bridge we stopped and checked out the view. This is where we spotted about one hundred red colored salmon spawning in the river. The fish are trucked above the two PSE dams on Lake Shannon and Baker Lake. They cannot get up stream because of the 312' tall dam on Baker Lake. Besides the salmon the only wildlife we saw were a few birds, one small green frog and a garter snake. There were also views of Mt. Blum east of the trail. Note that the last 4 miles of the Baker Lake Road is gravel. The first 1.5 miles has some mighty big potholes. Even the drive up the Baker Lake Road has some nice scenic views along the way. At Boulder Creek there is a great view of Mt. Baker from the bridge.