Back to Church

Fog at the beginning of the day's hike

Back to Church Mountain that is, two weeks after our first visits. Our Senior Trailblazer problem right now is having only a few hikes in the High Country that are not completely snowed in. Earlier in the week, Al and some other Trailblazers went up to check out today's scheduled hike and decided that it would be good to let it wait a bit, so seven of us headed up to the Church Mountain meadow once again. It's my third trip in less than a month, but the amazing thing is the difference in the snow levels.

By the time we emerged from the trees and reached the beginning of the meadow, where everything was under snow two weeks ago, now the false hellebore is beginning to emerge everywhere, and the sun was shining in an almost-cloudless sky. All these little plants you see here will be many feet high before we head up again. We could almost see the difference in them during the few hours we spent up there before heading back down.

We were in no danger of reaching the summit, or getting anywhere near it, as the trail disappeared under snow. We decided to keep going upwards until noon when we stopped for lunch, finding a nice shady spot on bare ground. The snowmelt during the last period has encouraged me that we will soon be reaching the actual summit of Church Mountain. The views we had were pretty stupendous, and here's the view from my vantage point for lunch.

Al is busy checking his GPS readings while the rest of us enjoyed our lunch. The areas on the ridge are beginning to sprout lots of flowers on the green slopes as they clear from the snow. Looking the other direction from here, we saw Shuksan and Mt. Baker framed through the trees. I must have a dozen pictures of both of them, but I think this one captured our amazing view of Mt. Baker.

We were perched on a ridge overlooking the valley we had climbed to get to this viewpoint. The light breeze coming off the snow was wonderful, cooling us as we ate and gathered our strength. When I walked over to find a better place to capture Mt. Baker, the air coming up from the valley was at least 15-20 degrees warmer! It was like stepping into a sauna. Our actual temperature was probably somewhere around 60 degrees F, but since we have been accustomed to much cooler temperatures, we felt a bit, well, hot. Once we started back to find the trail and head back to our cars, it felt very warm.

I saw my first glacier lilies of the season today. They emerge when the snow finally retreats, and they don't last long. I've gotten pictures of fields of glacier lilies in past years and hope to do the same this season, but for now this single lovely glacier lily will have to do.

All in all, it was a lovely day, with good friends, lots of sunshine (I'm glad I put on sunscreen before I left home), and pretty much perfect weather: cool at the beginning, not too awfully hot at the end. I look forward to at least one more trip up this trail, when we finally get to the summit, a really beautiful place with 360-degree views. We did make almost eight miles of the nine to the summit and back, and covered 2,700 feet of elevation out of the total 4,000 to the top. That will wait for another day. For now, however, I'm ready for a shower to wash off the sunscreen and bug spray!
:-)