Heliotrope Ridge Revisited

Earlier this year, my youngest son, a friend, and I hiked the trail to Heliotrope Ridge, a popular trail that provides some excellent views of Mount Baker and of Coleman Glacier on the west side of Mount Baker.  This time (Wednesday, September 22) I hiked the trail with the sixth through eighth grades and several teachers and parents from the small private Christian school that our youngest son once attended.

Coleman Glacier

Mount Baker

(we had our lunch on the big rock)

Mount Baker and Coleman Glacier

The day was beautiful and sunny and we arrived at the trailhead around 10:00 in the morning.  There were quite a few cars at the trailhead, but we soon found that most of them belonged to climbers who were on their way to the top of Mount Baker, since that trail and the trail to Heliotrope Ridge are the same for most of the way to the ridge.

Along the Trail

There were very few wildflowers blooming, and though I saw a couple of native orchids, they too were finished blooming and had produced their seedpods.  There were, however, a lot of mushrooms and other fungi, since the weather the past few weeks has been quite wet.  I managed to get some decent pictures of some of them and enjoyed looking for them.

Heart-leaf Twayblade

Insect Galls

Woolly Gomphus

Sweating Red-banded Polypore

Salmonberry and Fruit of False Solomon's Seal

Lupine and Asters

Queen Anne's Lace and Lupine

Indian Paintbrush

We had only about a five mile round trip and so were off the trail by 2:30 and back home again by 4:00 in the afternoon.  All-in-all it was a very pleasant hike, though I lost my hiking tripod in one of the streams we had to cross.  I was the only one who did not get wet feet, but in my efforts to avoid wet feet dropped my tripod which the stream quickly carried beyond reach.

Kulshan Creek Falls