Sauk Mountain and Sauk Lake attempt

Trailblazers on Sauk Mountain, taken by David Ragozin

(Update 19 July) Well, will you look at that! A picture of the entire group sent to me by a passerby, who had a wonderful camera and offered to take a picture of all of us with it. I have two taken on my iPhone where we are all in shadow. I added this after I wrote the post because it's so good! Thank you, David! Here's the description of our hike:

Foggy start with my fancy new hatband, pic taken by Rita

Both of the Senior Trailblazers groups headed up to Sauk Mountain today, 12 in our group and 11 in the other one. We drove for almost two hours to get to the trailhead. This is a beautiful hike, but it's very short one after a very long drive from Bellingham. Today, however, was incredibly special, even though I realized that I had forgotten my camera! All pictures are taken with my iPhone. We started in dense fog, as you can see from the picture above (at the trailhead), which lifted rather soon. We haven't actually done this hike since 2009, and it was foggy then, too. Here's a link to that hike.

Coolness evaporated with the fog

It was very pleasant hiking steeply uphill over 28 switchbacks... until the fog lifted and the sun came out. The dew on the plants and the fog made it very comfortable, since one traverses across the steep hillside with little letup for almost two miles. The dew on the flowers made this lovely little spiderweb catch my eye:

Dew-enhanced spiderweb

I moaned about having left my camera at home, but I kept snapping shots right and left with my iPhone, hoping for the best, and I'm quite pleased with what I was able to capture. As we continued our upward climb, we gained a view above the fog layer, and then beautiful Mt. Baker appeared!

Peekaboo Mt. Baker at the edge of the clouds

The views of the mountains continued to become more and more stunning, as we climbed closer to the summit. And then when we reached the place where we would descend more than a thousand feet downwards to Sauk Lak. We began heading down, down to the lake. We knew we would be leaving the views behind, but our plan was to make it to the lake and then head back up to the summit for lunch.

Heading down towards Sauk Lake

But it was not to be. After we had lost about 500 feet of elevation, we were in steep snow-covered terrain, slippery and not easy hiking at all. We had a conference and decided to head back up to the summit of Sauk Mountain for lunch, skipping Sauk Lake for today. Everyone was in agreement. Although it was already noon, nobody wanted to hike back up 500 feet of elevation on a full stomach, so up we went.

Views were astounding everywhere we looked

By the time we climbed back up and got to the top, some wanted to stay right there for lunch (which they did), but four of our members went on to the actual summit, where an old Forest Service lookout once perched. In 2009, I didn't go to the top, but this year I gathered my courage and went to the actual summit with Jonelle to join the other four. Everyone else stayed just where I did last time. I'm glad I went, but it was really a bit scary crossing the snow with nothing to stop me if I fell. The views were tremendous, and I got to stand at the summit with Jonelle.

The three of us: Jonelle, me, and Mt. Baker

After we rejoined the others and descended back to the cars, we had an incredible view of the Sauk/Skagit Rivers below us in the Sauk Valley. The last time I did this hike I didn't appreciate the incredible views like I did today. Today the views were stunning, just stunning.

The Sauk and Skagit Rivers converge here

Although it was a long drive for a short hike, I don't think there was anybody who was unhappy about having made the decision to join the Trailblazers today for this hike. I know I am very happy to be sitting here, wine glass empty and post almost finished, after the day's activity.

Those who are wondering about yesterday's skydive with Jonelle, we got weathered out and will make another attempt tomorrow to jump out of a perfectly good plane together. To think that we could have this adventure today, and tomorrow a completely different one, well life doesn't get much better than this!
:-)