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05oct2023 THU, after Park Butte Lookout, for my Back to the Trailhead, and for purpose of "testing" PNWNST (Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail), and visiting Baker Pass, i did the route: Lookout > 603 > 603.3 > PNWNST > 603.

Gaia and Alltrails show this PNWNST (Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail) traversing the northside of Cathedral Crag. And though PNWNST was mentioned in the Mt Baker National Recreation Area Trails (on the information booth beside the Park Butte trailhead), this "trail" itself was not shown in the Map.

The ~0.5 mi of Bell Pass Trail was wide and gravel, and dirt. Seemed maintained. Very nice.

After passing the Hikers Hut, there's a Trail-Post that alerts of Ridley Creek Tr is "Not maintained". The first ~0.2 mi of PNWNST was meadows walk .. bootpath .. occasionally faint. and/or hidden by the person-high bushes .. did some light-bushwacking .. 😅 until nearing Baker Pass, where it opens up. And from then on, it was an easy walk in the meadows 😚

Btw, and just sharing .. there's a review in Google-map that commented that a "Class_4" scramble is required to get to the top of Cathedral Crag.

Saw no one during my ~1 mi "semi-looping" Cathedral Crag ..And looking back "now", it was kinda fun .. esp the light-bushwacking .. and the sweet solitude 😊

Happy Trails Everyone 😄

  Decided to hike a portion of this trail on Whidbey Island. This 6.4 mile section is from Libbey Beach County Park to Joseph Whidbey State Park. All of it is on the beach on the West side of Whidbey Island. The weather was gloomy at first but sun came out about 15 minutes after starting this hike and stayed out the rest of the hike. This beach trail is quite rocky in spots so be prepared with some hiking boots. Also make sure you start this hike about two hours before low tide this way you have plenty of time to hike it all and get the best chance of hiking some of it on soft sand instead of rocks. I got dropped off at Libbey Park since this hike is one way unless you want to turnaround. Checkout the video of this hike or over 300 other hikes I have done on my VIMEO Channel https://vimeo.com/mikemorrison or click on the link below for this hike

As always get out and see this beautiful state and enjoy your hiking!!

Take care,

Mike

Overall the trails were in pretty good shape, in spite of the high winds a few days before.  There is one spot on the PNT thru the north end of Ft Ebey that is almost always very muddy.  It is a low spot near Lake Pondilla.  Work is needed to build that up to keep it passible.

We decided on this trail today to avoid the haze and bugs in the Cascades.  The smoke maps showed that the northwest corner of the state was outside of the smoke zone and it was spot on.  While we were drive up I-5 it was very hazy to the east and crystal clear to the west. The line between clear and hazy was very distinct.

We got to the Chuckanut Dr Trailhead at about 10am.  There were only 10 cars. The trail was very uncrowded compared to other times that I have hiked there in the spring and fall. 

We did a counterclockwise loop going up the PNW trail and Max's Shortcut with side trips to the Sammish Overlook and Lily Lake. We returned on the Sammish Bay Connector (the usual Oyster Dome Trail). 

10 mi RT with 2100 ft elevation gain  

Link to a nice smoke graphic website below.  Check both the Near Surface Smoke (what you breath) and the Vertically Integrated (atmosphere haze) to get the full picture.