Ptarmigan Ridge — Thursday, Jul. 20, 2006

North Cascades > Mount Baker Area

Headed up to Ptarmigan Ridge on Mt. Baker on Wednesday for yet another mountain goat helicopter survey. The road to Artist Point is not yet open past the upper Heather Meadows parking lot, although the road and Artist Point parking lot have nearly been cleared by two bulldozers that were up there working while we were there. Maybe it'll be opened within the next couple weeks, though the snow definetely won't be melted yet... Technically, the Ptarmigan Ridge trail starts right in the big pile of snow that the dozers have piled up at the far end of the lot. This is blocky and unstable though so it's probably easier to hike up and around to the right on naturally fallen snow. The treeless section of the trail traversing the side of Table Mountain is mostly snow free although with a couple moderately steep patches, and rotting snow bridge that must be descended around (20 feet or so). Things are changing fast however. We started late in the day and camped at the saddle at the far end of Table Mountain. Although there had been high clouds all day, we had a beautiful sunset, fortelling of the very calm, and very hot weather to come. On Thursday morning, we dawdled a little bit, waiting for the snow to soften up (we did not carry ice axes because my partner didn't know how to use one). Sure enough, the short stretch of snow just beyond our camp proved to be too steep and run out for us, particularly because it was shaded much of the morning. Ice axes pretty much still required for this part of the trip, although I doubt they would be needed anywhere else. The basin beyond was still entirely full of snow, but from there on the trail passes onto south facing slopes with hip high meadows later in summer, so I would assume that much of it is snowfree. Still, the bit of steep snow kept us back and we mostly lounged around in the shade until after dinner when we made our way back to Artist Ridge near the parking lot for the night (with a better view of the local goat habitat). The helicopter came in the morning, bright and early and we completed the survey in reasonably good time, but that still didn't save us from the heat of today, though I'm sure it got plenty worse. The bugs were around, but tolerable. The mosquitoes didn't seem to know how to bite yet. Because of the snow, I wouldn't really consider this trail open to hikers yet. The other trails in the Heather Meadows/Artist Point area seemed to be approxomately half snow covered, and are not really open yet either, although this very warm weather could change that very quickly.