Another kind of energy shortage

Saddling up

What a day to forget my camera!

After two Thursday hiking washouts in a row, on Friday I decided to join a Mount Baker Club snowshoe hike led by Marjan, since it looked to be a beautiful sunny day. Up in the mountains the temperature was only expected to climb to about 10 degrees F,  but you can’t pass up a beautiful sunny in February around here, can you? Can you?

A lot of people can, as it turned out. The day before, another sunny but cold day, only Marjan, Frank and I showed up at the Senior Center for the scheduled hike to Goose Rock. I had already given up on driving to Goose Rock that day, since Skagit and Island Counties had borne the brunt of last week’s late winter storm – on Tuesday evening the Deception Pass Bridge, which is adjacent to Goose Rock, had even been closed by snow. There was some snow in Bellingham but the roads weren’t too bad, so I figured we could find somewhere local to hike.

But the only ones who showed up were from the northern part of the county, near the Canadian border, where there was no snow at all. Since it was cold enough for all prudent people to bring their brass monkeys indoors, we three decided to bag it, do some shopping and return to our burrows.

You think it's cold and windy down here?

The turnout was bit better the next day for the snowshoe outing – eight hardy souls met in Maple Falls and decided to head for the White Salmon trails, one of the less avalanche prone areas. It took us quite awhile to get started but then we had delightful, if not very exciting, hike. Which is good, since a lot of the forms that “excitement” can take in those conditions are not very pleasant, to put it mildly.

But I didn’t have my camera – I had been careful to attach it to the waistband of my pack the day before, but then I changed packs and missed it during the swap. But Aha! I keep my old Sony camera in the car for just such emergencies. I took it out of the console, turned it on, and before I could even aim it the flashing battery-with-a-slash-through-it icon appeared and it shut itself off. I thought maybe I could get off one picture if I really hurried, so I set the dials carefully, choosing the scenery setting so that it wouldn’t need to try to focus the lens, wishing that I had enough time to turn off the LCD display since that uses a lot of power, pointed it roughly toward some waiting hikers with Mount Shuksan in the background, pushed the Power button, and as soon as possible pressed the shutter release. I heard the reassuring sound of a click, and the camera immediately shut itself off.

On the way back

I couldn’t look to see if I’d really gotten a picture, since that would surely burn up any chance of squeezing out any more. And there was still some hope of that, since some types of batteries can recover a little bit of vigor if they sit unused for awhile. I know that was true of the old-fashioned carbon-zinc batteries we used as kids, but did it apply to modern super-super “Info-Lithium” energy packs? What the heck, it was worth a try, so I took the camera along with me.

After we’d been hiking past some gorgeous views of Mounts Sefrit and Shuksan, some seldom-used part of my brain got my attention and reminded me that battery output is generally very much affected by heat, of which we had very little, indeed. Certainly the outside pocket of my jacket, where the camera had taken up residence, was only marginally warmer than the great outdoors and was probably still well below freezing. And my pants pockets would probably be worse, since legs don’t really heat up much. A shirt pocket would be great, but neither of my shirts had any. If I just tucked it inside my coat it would almost certainly fall out into a powdery drift.

And besides, even though the camera is a small one it is still a pretty decent block of metal and would soak up a bit of heat before it got to the battery.

OK, dummy: So take the battery out of the camera!

Now we’re getting somewhere. The battery pack is a dainty little package, less than an inch and a half square and about a quarter-inch thick. It would fit in my mouth, even, but I was looking for a somewhat drier environment than that. Of course, just about any place on my person that was really warm was not going to be very dry since I sweat like a horse. It would fit in my glove, but I needed my hands for my trekking poles. I could stick it in my armpit, but that wouldn’t be very secure as long as I’m moving my arms. And if it did drop I might not be able to find it in my clothes.

Sherry, Frank & Marjan below Mount Shuksan

I decided to wait until we settled down for lunch and then try slipping the battery into my armpit while I ate. I stuck it between my two shirts and that worked fairly well, but it was very hard to keep it in place and I dropped it several times. It wasn’t too hard to find it since I was sitting still and it only fell as far as my waist. I managed to grab another picture that showed the snow whipping off the summit of Mount Shuksan.

It was pretty clear that the armpit trick wasn’t going to do for the rest of the hike, since it had barely worked while sitting still. I will spare you the details (which would fall into the sphere popularly known as “TMI”) but suffice it to say that I did manage to get several more pictures on the return trip.

The day was capped nicely by a stop at the ever popular North Fork Beer Shrine, Pizzeria and Wedding Chapel.

Three Winter Hikes

Ruth Mountain

Snowshoe Loop

We have had a break from the rain in the last week or so, allowing for three beautiful hikes. The first three weeks of January were very wet – I measured over 7 inches of rain, well over the average for the whole month, which is generally one of the three wettest months of the year. It is also about one-fifth of our average annual rainfall. Between the 5th and the 24th there were only two days without rain.

Shuksan

Last Wednesday the forecast looked great, so a bunch of us headed up to the the Mount Baker Ski Area, hoping to snowshoe up to Artist Point for some of the superb views. The weather didn’t quite live up to the forecast but there was some sun when we arrived – unfortunately the higher elevation areas were closed for avalanche control work. Ironically, the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center had listed the avalanche danger for the day at its lowest level.

Frank at lunch

So Marjan led us on a loop down and around the ski area. Most of the time we were away from the built-up areas and had a nice hike in the woods with frequent views of Mount Shuksan.

The most excitement came about midway when we had to cross the highway. Normally this would be pretty uneventful, but the eight-foot-high vertical walls of packed ice and snow on each side of the road spiced it up a bit. Getting down to the road wasn’t exactly easy, but hauling ourselves back up onto the snow was a real struggle. I finally got a chance to use the plastic scraper-shovel thing I’d been hauling around for about 8 years.

There were some other places where we had to struggle up some pretty steep slopes and the sun withdrew some of its support as the day went on. By the time we got back to the cars it was pretty chilly and windy. But the sun still peeked through now and then, lighting up the snow in places and making for some eerie, almost monochromatic scenery.

Looking toward Artist Point

Mount Erie

The next day was even nicer for the weekly hike of the Senior Trailblazers. We would have gladly settled for just a dry day but after driving through some fog we found full sun at the Heart Lake trailhead in the Anacortes Community Forest Lands on Fidalgo Island. We enjoyed a nice strenuous climb through the woods to the summit of Mount Erie where we were greeted by a view that was truly spectacular, even by the standards of our glorious Fourth Corner.

 

Campbell Lake – Skagit Bay – Mount Rainier

We were standing in full sun but there were high clouds adding color interest to the sky. To the south, looking over Campbell Lake and Skagit Bay, the sky had a salmon-colored hue; the fog still lingered over the lakes and bays; and that lump on the horizon is Mount Rainier, almost 120 miles away. It is rare to see Rainier at all from this distance, considering that we are looking over or through the smog a major city, but on my telephoto pictures you can even see distinct detail on the mountain. A first.

Further to the west the Olympic Mountains, only about 30 miles away, were glowing in full sun, but I neglected to take a picture.

Glacier Peak and friends rising above the fog

To the southwest was a rank of western Cascade peaks, including Three Fingers, White Horse and White Chuck Mountains, presided over by the least known of the major Cascade volcanoes, Glacier Peak. It is as tall as Mount Baker but it is very rare to get a good look at it, since it is sits well away from the populated sea level strip of Washington and is surrounded by medium sized mountains.

Glacier Peak

Mount Baker

From another overlook a short distance away we could look out over Anacortes and its oil refinery (famous for a recent explosion) toward Mount Baker, the local favorite.

Huntoon Point

After a bit more rain over the weekend we were promised almost a week of fine, cold weather. So a group of 7 set off Tuesday for the Ski Area and another attempt to reach the Artist Point area. The day was sunny and cold and the avalanche danger was rated at the lowest level, so we were eager to get to that spectacular scenery that had been denied us on our last two snowshoe trips. It was only the second snowshoe outing for two of our hikers, so I really hoped we wouldn’t get snookered again.

The gang

Linda on the way to Huntoon Point

And the Weather Service nailed this one – just a perfect day! The only possible complaint that anyone could come up with was that the sky was a bit too blue – not enough clouds to add interest to the photos.

[Which reminds me of a time when I was first getting to know my first wife’s family, who owned and ran a fairly prosperous farm in the fertile Lake Erie bottomlands of southeastern Michigan. I had heard my father-in-law complain about the weather being too dry or too wet or too cold or whatever. It was always something. Then one summer we had warm, sunny weather with enough spring rain to germinate the crops but not enough to flood the fields, etc., etc. Perfect, right? Surely Tony would be pleased.

Huntoon Point

So the next time I asked him how the weather was going, he said, “The crop’s too good. The prices are down!”]

We made it to Artist Point and on to Huntoon Point, a hill that rises about 300 feet higher and gives 360 degree views of Mounts Baker and Shuksan, Baker Lake and a broad panoply of the North Cascades.

The stone bridge on Chain Lakes trail

On the way back down we took a small side trip down into the Bagley Creek valley, where I got a picture of the small stone bridge that carries the Chain Lakes trail over the creek. You can almost see the bridge, if you look closely.

Elk on the Nooksack

On our way back down the Mount Baker Highway, my sharp-sighted passengers saw a small herd of 5 or 6 elk sunning themselves along the bank of the Nooksack River. Unfortunately, they saw us, too. By the time I could get out of the car to take a picture, they were moving off into the brush.

The weatherman is now reneging on that week of fine weather – it is still nice today, but our Thursday hike on Blanchard Mountain, and most of the weekend, will likely be soggy, again.

For more on this outing, see Djan’s blog.

Shuksan

Baker

Odd lumps of snow on a slope

DJan by Bagley Creek