Hiked last Saturday with good friends up the newly repaired and logged out Ridley Creek Trail, through Mazama Park and up to the Park Butte Lookout. A new footlog with hand rail has been installed across the Middle Fork of the Nooksack River near the beginning of the trail. All of the blowdowns have been removed, tread repaired and drainage provisions installed on the Ridley Creek Trail through a partnership with Cascade Mountain Runners, Washington Trails Association and the U.S. Forest Service. The renovation of this trail is still a work in progress and will be improved as resources allow, with additional treadwork and brushing. The Ridley Creek Trail provides the nearest access to the high country on the south side of Mount Baker from Bellingham, requiring a drive of only a little more than an hour. After a 3 mile hike and reasonable climb you'll reach the splendid meadows of Mazama Park. A substantial log shelter and toilet are available here and a few tent sites. The exquisite old growth forest including several huge Yellow Cedars that you will pass by on your way to the high country is worth the hike in itself. Other than the Middle Fork Nooksack, we crossed a couple of small creek within the first 3 miles where water resupply was an option. We continued on up another 2 miles to the Park Butte Lookout where the giant white mass of Mount Baker was right in our faces. It is difficult to get too much of that amazing view! To the south and west, the beautiful red-rock range of the Twin Sisters stretched out along the skyline and difficult to take your eyes away from. On this very warm day, we enjoyed a refreshing dunk in the small tarn, in the meadow below the Park Butte on the way back. Just enough evaporative cooling to get you back down to the shady forest. To sum it up, a very reasonable 10 mile, round trip hike will get you all of the mountain joys that you could possibly handle in a day :).

Participated on WTA's second weekend work party on this trail on October 4th and 5th. I wanted to update my prior trip report with the current trail conditions after the completion of the USFS trail crew and WTA work for this year. The Glacier Ranger District USFS crew had gone in for a second week and completed logging out the trail. They have also elevated the foot-log on cribbing to get it higher above the Middle Fork Nooksack. The foot-log had washed out during the week that they were completing the log out. That makes the trail deadfall free all the way up through Mazama Park to the junction with the Bell Pass trail. For WTA's part, we completed brushing out the trail all the way to the start of the switchbacks along with some improvements of the worst sections of tread. These efforts have returned this historic trail to a passable status. Admittedly, the tread needs a lot of work. There are several muddy spots and areas where the trail appears to also be a stream during and after a heavy rain, but this trail is no rougher than many others in the North Cascades that receive little maintenance. One last note, this road is gated on December 1st each winter. I also need to add that along with the Hemlocks and Alaskan Yellow Cedar there are numerous Pacific Silver Fir in the lower elevations. On the history note, I was sent a Mazama magazine article from the 1920's that stated the community of Demming built the trail in 1909 prior to a Mazama all summer expedition to map the south side of Mount Baker. Many of the features on the south and west side of the mountain sport names given them by the Mazamas.

Two of us ACLs hiked this trail Wednesday, September 10th in preparation for the WTA work parties scheduled for Sept 20/21 and Oct 4/5. We went to the end of Mazama Park where you start dropping down for the final crossing of Ridley Creek prior to intersecting the Bell Pass Trail. The USFS Glacier District trail crew has been working on the trail since the prior trip report was submitted. They have installed a temporary, flattened foot log over the Middle Fork Nooksack with a rope for stability. The trail from the parking area leads you to the north side of the Middle Fork where you will be looking at the dry rocky bottom as the river is currently running on the far side (about 75 feet away). You will see the foot log to your right (west) across the river. The USFS crew has also logged out the first 2 ½ miles of trail into about the middle of the switchbacks. They have done some tread work in the lower section prior to the switchbacks making it a little easier to follow the trail. However, much of this lower section of trail is both dry stream bed and trail which is still brushy in spots. Cascade Mountain Runners out of Bellingham, headed by Dan Probst an ultra-marathon runner, is working with the USFS to reopen the Ridley Creek Trail. Dan and two other runners actually completed a round trip run from Bellingham Bay to the top of Mount Baker and back on August 3rd. You can goggle the Bellingham Herald story. The Ridley Creek Trail is one of the many historic trails in the Mount Baker area. The creek and trail are named for USFS Ranger Joe Ridley, a ranger during the early 1900’s – the beginnings of the USFS. The Ridley Creek trail was used in the 1911-1913 Mount Baker Marathons for the Deming side of the race. Folks interested in this history could read “Koma Kulshan” by John C. Miles or watch the excellent video “Mountain Runners” (locally produced in Bellingham), both available at Village Books in the Fairhaven district of Bellingham. The trail originally went through Baker Pass to the north of Cathedral Crag vice between Cathedral Crag and Park Butte as it now does. My 1989 USGS map shows the original route, which makes sense if you are headed for the summit of Mt. Baker. The Mazama’s also had a cabin in Mazama Park in the early 1900’s, which is no longer there. One more interesting feature of this hike is the forest itself. First, the 12 mile drive up FS Road 38 is through an area originally logged by railroad. To the left of the FS road in a few of the tributary stream drainages, old wooden trestle remains can be seen. At the trailhead, the forest is a mix of species typical of a logged area. However, as soon as you have crossed the Middle Fork Nooksack on the foot log you enter a forest that has never been logged. The unique thing about this forest is that it is not what most folks think of as classic PNW old growth. This forest is made up almost entirely of very large Western Hemlock, Mountain Hemlock, and Alaskan Yellow Cedar rather than Douglas-Fir and Red Cedar. In fact, we only noticed one extremely large Douglas-Fir during the entire hike. Hemlock is actually the climax species of tree in the PNW due to its ability to tolerate deep shade. Hemlock will grow in the shade of the Douglas-Firs and Red Cedars eventually out competing and replacing them in a forest that is not logged or fire damaged. Mazama Park is acre upon acre of grass and blue-berry bushes. The trail is faint through here, but that may be because in the old days trails were not graded through the meadows. The trail was built to both sides of the meadow and hikers would just find their way through the meadow with the terrain and common sense leading the way.

Full trip report here: http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8012047 I combined three of the loneliest trails in the Mount Baker Wilderness in a great 14 mile loop! While most of the loop is in the woods, there is enough variety to kill off any monotony that I find common to other forest walks. I started on the Elbow Lake Trail and ended on the Ridley Creek Trail. The first crossing of the Middle Fork Nooksack River had a nice footlog. The Elbow Lake Trail and Bell Pass Trails are well maintained and free of deadfall and major drainage issues. There are a couple brushy areas near Elbow Lake but nothing too bad. My map claimed that the Bell Pass trail started off of FS road 12, but it actually starts off of Elbow Lake Trail about a mile past the lakes. There are a couple muddy areas near bell pass where puncheon is being built. It looks like they started last year but haven't finished yet. The start of Ridley Creek Trail is difficult to find, look for an unmarked junction just past the Mazama Park horse shelter. There are several areas where the tread has vanished, and I counted 31 trees fallen across the trail. In the first mile it crosses two deep creekbeds and a series of marshy meadows. The segment of trail through the meadows is very indistinct, I found it helpful to look for other hikers' footprints in the mud. After entering the woods, routefinding no longer becomes a problem, but deadfall is constant. Bypassing one especially large tree required climbing 20' up the steep hillside! From the bottom of the switchbacks to the river, the trail once again becomes difficult to follow as it follows rocky creekbeds and mossy ditches. It was easy to get off-trail through here. This trail offers the closest access to Baker from Bellingham, too bad it's fallen into such disrepair. The final step is to re-cross the Nooksack, this time only 1.5 miles below the Deming Glacier. Just before reaching an abandoned shack, scramble down to the gravel bars and follow the river upstream to another log. This log was more slippery than the first one, so I butt-scooted across it. Once across the river, I followed cairns downstream to where the trailhead connector picks up. A quick 1.5 mile roadwalk concluded the loop.

Stream crossing just after elbow lake trailhead had a nice log that someone had flattened and roughed the surface which made crossing easy. Log is 100 m upstream of where trail opens up to stream. No snow until top of Baker pass but lot's of people and tracks. Finding unmarked trail to Rigley Creek near horse camp under Baker Pass difficult. Coming from the pass, the trail is off to the right at a 120 angle around 30 meters before the shelter. Lots of underbrush and soggy meadows. Lost trail a couple times and had to circle around to find it. Rigley Creek was flowing very heavily late in the day. Was able to wade creek alone without backback but almost lost footing waste deep in fast moving water and too dangerous for smaller/lighter companions. Eventually found a log 500 meters up the creek. Scooted across log on butt with feet in the water. Crossing is scary with not many options late in day.