ADVENTURES NORTHWEST SPRING 2020
CLIMBING IN THE CANOPY
TRAIL RUNNING: FINDING THE FLOW MT. BAKER CIRCUMNAVIGATION REMEMBERING FISHTOWN TREKKING IN GREENLAND >>> EXTENSIVE OUTDOOR EVENTS CALENDAR INSIDE
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The heartbeat of Cascadia
INSPIRATIONS
IN THIS ISSUE
Up in the Air Climbing in the Canopy
Nick Belcaster
10
A Beautiful Bad Idea
Jacob Hartsoch
14
Abram Dickerson
20
A Conversation with David Guterson
Roger Gilman
26
A Wing and a Prayer
Ken Salzman
30
A Mt. Baker Circumnavigation
Jeff List
32
Notes from the Arctic Circle Trail
Abby Sussman & August Allen
38
Lorraine Wilde
46
Finding the Flow A Trail Runner’s Journey
Inspiring Passion
Remembering Fishtown Art and Nature on the Skagit River
“There is no such beauty as where you belong.” - Stephen Paulus
DESTINATIONS Lessons from the Void Out & About 3 Great Hikes ... for Spring Outside In Bright Lines Vital Signs eARTh: The Art of Nature Field Trip: Glacier Bay Cascadia Gear Race | Play | Experience Calendar Next Adventure: Princess Louisa Inlet
7 8 9 19 43 45 49 53 54 55 58 Photo by Kenni Merritt
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CONTRIBUTORS Doug Banner is a professional storyteller and Wood Artist. After a 40year career in education, Doug is determined to spend the rest of his life exploring the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual benefits of living life creatively. Doug’s deep connections to the natural world strongly influence all of his creative endeavors. Nick Belcaster is a Bellingham-based writer who finally tossed the yoke of domesticity in 2018 with a hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, and now lives to recapture that universal freedom through backpacking, biking, climbing and just about anything else that involves a good amount of dirt under your nails. James Bertolino’s most recent books include Ravenous Bliss: New and Selected Love Poems, (MoonPath Press, 2014) and Last Call: The Anthology of Beer, Wine & Spirits Poetry anthology, which he edited for World Enough Writers in 2018. He lives with artist and poet Anita Boyle, on five acres near Bellingham, Washington. Long ago, Kathy and Craig Copeland rearranged their lives to make hiking the white-hot molten core of their shared identity. They built their livelihood on a unique ability to express the wonder, joy, and exhilaration they feel in wild places. They’re now Canada’s most prolific hiking-and-camping guidebook authors. Visit hikingcamping.com to see their titles and peruse their blog. Abram Dickerson loves the mountains, trails, and all things wild. Most importantly he appreciates the friendships, perspectives, and lessons that emerge from the suffering and satisfaction of
Volume 15. Issue 1 playing in wilderness spaces. He keeps his plate perpetually full as a husband, father, urban homesteader, and as the owner of Aspire Adventure Running. The poet Roger Gilman lives in Bellingham and can be found around the northwest along Cascade mountain streams and in Puget Sound salt marshes fly fishing and birding for poems. Formerly the poetry editor of The Chicago Review, he is a philosopher of evolutionary ecology and restoration biology and served as dean of Fairhaven College at Western Washington University. Roger currently serves as poetry editor of Adventures Northwest. David Guterson is the author of the acclaimed novel Snow Falling on Cedars. His book-length poem, Turn Around Time: A Walking Poem for the Pacific Northwest was published by Seattle-based Mountaineers Books last year. He lives on Bainbridge Island with his wife Robin. They have five children. Follow him on Instagram @davidguterson. Jake Hartsoch is a Bellingham-based runner, climber, skier, sailor, poet, and cookie dough aficionado. He loves dirtbag-style adventures to wild places with his two young boys and moving fast in the mountains. Sarah Laing is a nutritionist, author and co-founder of S&J Natural Products, which offers CBD-infused products for healthy lifestyles. She is currently writing her second book, The Cannabinoid Diet, which focuses on phytocannabinoid-based nutritional guidelines to activate the body’s endocannabinoid system, restoring balance in the body and promoting overall health. Jeff List, 60, retired as an oceanographer with the USGS in 2016 and is now a full-time outdoor ad-
SPRING | 2020
venturer based in Anacortes, WA. Running ultramarathons keep him in shape for his primary interest: exploring off-trail routes through wild and beautiful places. Ken Salzman has been birding and photographing birds for almost 40 years. He currently teaches birding and photography classes at Whatcom Community College and annually conducts bird photography workshops at Wings Over Water: the Northwest Birding Festival. His work has been published in various periodicals and utilized by the Nature Conservancy. Visit him at kensalzman.zenfolio.com Christine Smith grew up with the Pacific Northwest. She is most at home in the space where the forest meets the ocean. Her favorite things include the earthy smells of a seaweed encrusted beach on a hot day and the excitement of discovering something new in nature. Abby Sussman and August Allen met in Antarctica and bonded over their shared distaste for gear stored externally on backpacks, bar soap, and jackets without pockets. They share a love of wild berries off the bush, aeropress coffee, and the tops of mountains. August’s photography has been featured in National Science Foundation publications and online resources. Abby has written for several local and national magazines. They have selected Bellingham as the starting point for their next adventure: A journey into Parenthood. Lorraine Wilde has been a freelance writer since 1998, having published more than 250 pieces in blogs, magazines and books. Throughout 30 years in the Pacific Northwest, she’s also been a teacher, actor, filmmaker, environmental scientist, mother and owner of the publicity business, Wilde World Communications. Learn more at wildeworldcomm.com.
Your Listing Specialists Sally Farrell 360-393-7339 sally@sallyfarrell.com
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Diana Burgon 360-927-8588 diana@burgonteam.com
LESSONS FROM THE VOID
I
had the good fortune to recently find myself snorkeling at Two Step Beach on the Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i. The multi-hued coral reef was magnificent and crowded with tropical fish of every description—an explosion of visual delights. My wife and I were ready to head in for a breather on shore when we spotted our son far out beyond the reef, signaling enthusiastically. We immediately began paddling out to him and soon found ourselves in deep water with no bottom in sight. Looking down into the dark void is always an interesting, and slightly unnerving experience: the beams of sunlight swallowed by the depths. Then far below we saw glimmers of light, like flashes of metal in the gloom. After a moment I realized what I was seeing: a school of dolphins circling far beneath us. As I watched, the dolphins rose toward us in a spiral, circling with an awe-inspiring grace. Soon they were among us, on all sides, moving in unison at great speed in an elegant congregation. They broke the water all around us, practically close enough to touch. We found ourselves in the center of a dolphin party—30 or more—their graceful backs rising out of the water, splashes illuminated by the sun. It all happened so quickly: there was no time—and no need—to react. An ecstatic moment, a fleeting sense of deep connection, unsullied joy! In a moment they were gone but the profound felicity of the encounter has not faded. I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced this kind of wildlife beatitude on many occasions: a close encounter with a family of lynx up the Chewuch River, a long moment in the presence of a female cougar with cubs, the spy-hopping humpback that rose—perhaps 30 feet away—to have a look down at me in a kayak among the Broken Group Islands, furtively watching grizzly bears practice the art of seduction on Admiralty Island. Encounters like these have the effect of expanding our sense of who—and what— we are: members of the glorious fellowship of wildlife nobility. A perspective-changing realization that we are, after all, animals ourselves. Most of us tend to think of ourselves as somehow apart from the natural world and sadly, there is still a sizable contingent that holds on to the preposterous idea that we’re in charge. This is obviously the source of many of our troubles—environmentally, psychologically, spiritually. But here’s some advice: go out and find yourself in the middle of a dolphin celebration. Embrace your own wild nature and discover a deep truth. Lose your mind and come to your senses.
Adventures NW magazine John D’Onofrio
Publisher/Editor john @ adventuresnw.com
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Ethan D’Onofrio
Catherine Darkenwald
Jason Rinne
Roger Gilman
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Out&About
Paddling Film Festival Returns to Bellingham
Climate Change: Up Close and Personal
The local paddling community is a big, happy and effusive group of fun-loving folks who take their paddling seriously but also know how to have a good time. You can join the party when the 14th Annual World Tour Paddling Film Festival pulls into Settlemeyer Hall at Bellingham Technical College on Friday, April 3. The show starts at 7 p.m. but come early to check out the vendor expo, sample some great food and enjoy some delectable cold beverages with the paddling tribe: doors open at 5:30.
The effects of climate change can be an abstraction, but not when you’re out among the glaciers of the North Cascades. Out on the ice, the scale, majesty and vulnerability of our glaciers is humbling and inspiring. Starting this summer, Seattle-based Mountain Madness will create an opportunity for hikers with no mountaineering experience to discover the magic of glacier travel on guided walking tours on the Cascade Glacier. These tours are offered as one- or two-day adventures and have been created, according to Mountain Madness owner Mark Gunlogson, with an environmental ethos in mind. The hope is that a walk on a glacier will be inspiring – both in terms of the remarkable beauty of the ice and with respect to advocacy against climate change.
This is the second year in a row that the Festival (which visits more than 120 cities around the planet) has touched down in Bellingham. You can thank Kristi Kucera, owner/ guide at Moondance Sea Kayak Adventures in Bellingham for making it happen. “I hope to spark that sense of a greater self when watching these amazing films that have been produced all over the world,” Kucera says. “I hope you laugh, cry, and keep that jaw dropped; the way I did when selecting the films to show here. “We are all in this together, protecting our water, playing in the places we love, and sharing in epic (and not so epic) journeys with the ones we love.” All proceeds go to support one of our great local recreation non-profits, Recreation Northwest. Tickets and more info: moondancekayak.com/paddling-film-festival-bellingham-wa.
Correction In our Winter issue we inadvertently printed an incorrect web address for The Langley Whale Center. The correct web address is www.OrcaNetwork.org. We regret the error.
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“The mission of Mountain Madness is to share our passion for all things mountains, and this includes stewardship of the natural environment,” Gunlogson says. “This tour gives participants who otherwise might not think it possible to go out on the glaciers a chance to experience them and gain a better understanding of how climate change is impacting the ice. Nothing beats experiential learning.” The Cascade Glacier is an apt location for this kind of consciousness-raising: one of the most rapidly retreating glaciers in the range, it has lost nearly half of its volume in the last 60 years. More info: mountainmadness.com/trips/ cascade-glacier-tours#overview
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Learn the Art of Bird Photography at WOW Springtime in Cascadia is for the birds. Lots and lots of birds. Wings Over Water, the regions premier birding festival takes place March 20-22 and for aspiring bird photographers, there are several opportunities to learn the fine points of capturing quality avian images. Award-winning wildlife photographer Paul Bannick will be on hand to deliver the keynote address, “Owls and their Habitats across the Northwest” on Saturday, March 21 at the Blaine Performing Arts Center at 5 p.m. Bannick, author of several bestselling photography books on birds will also lead a Beginning Bird Photo by Photography workshop on March John D’Onofrio 22 at 11:30 a.m. at the Great Blue Heron Grill at Semiahmoo Golf & Country Club. Photographer Ken Salzman, whose photos grace the centerspread in this issue, will be leading a two-day Advanced Photography Workshop on Friday, March 20 (9 a.m. – 4 p.m.) and Saturday, March 21 (8 a.m. – 12 noon). Register online at wingsoverwaterbirdingfestival.com
Letters to the Editor Share your thoughts!
Write to editor@AdventuresNW.com
SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE I speak as a third generation Washingtonian and one who started salmon fishing 70 years ago and gave it up eight years ago in BC. I pose the following questions: Where are the Cherry Point herring? Why no annual reports? Cause of decline? Solutions? How can Duwamish Waterway, et al., be restored? How can estuaries be rebuilt? Where are the progress reports after the Elwha River dam’s removal? Sewage treatment plants allow most chemicals to pass through. When will we remove them? Vehicles drop oil and antifreeze that ends up in Puget Sound. Why not require vehicle inspections and stop polluting? When will we remove plastics from our waters? Why not use water filters instead of plastic bottles? Dale R. Petersen Sandy Point stories & the race|play|experience calendar online.
3 Great Hikes for Spring Toleak Point
Now here’s a grand adventure on the wilderness coast in Olympic National Park! The 12-mile roundtrip to Toleak Point is an honest-to-God adventure, beautiful (and oft lonely) beaches alternating with pulse-quickening climbs over several headlands with the aid of fixed ropes and cable ladders. Atop the headlands you’ll be in muck up to your ankles, creating a deep sense of gratitude for the stretches of easy beach walking along one of the most dramatic sections of the wild Olympic Coast. Off-shore, the Giants Graveyard is an epic collection of sea stacks and overhead, eagles gather in crowds. The trip starts at the Third Beach trail head, reaching the sea after 1.5 miles of moss-festooned forest. You’ll turn south (left) when you reach Third Beach and make your way towards a waterfall cascading down from Taylor Point. Climb the headland with the aid of a ‘sand ladder’ (bring gloves!), traverse forest (and mud) before dropping again to the beach near Scott’s Bluff. From here several smaller headlands can be rounded at low tide or clambered over with the help of ropes. Toleak Point itself is sublime with excellent camps and a delightful creek. You can continue on, climbing some more and savoring the wild coast all the way to Hoh Head, reaching the road near Oil City. With a car shuttle, this makes for a classic Olympic traverse. Trailhead: 11.5 miles from US-101 on the La Push Road (bear left at the ‘Y’ at 7.7 miles), Olympic National Park. Wilderness Camping Permits are required for overnight camping on the coast. Obtain permits at the Wilderness Information Center (WIC) in Port Angeles.
Ruby Creek Pretty much a hike to nowhere at all, the Ruby Creek Trail offers an easy stroll beside the musical waters of this delightful creek in the Ross Lake NRA section of the North Cascades Complex. From the trailhead, cross Ruby Creek on the East Bank Trail and immediately turn right on the Ruby Creek Trail. This little-used trail climbs up and down a bit, rising to 100foot high viewpoints and dropping to the creek’s rocky shores, eventually reaching a bridged crossing of Canyon Creek at its confluence with Ruby after a mile. There are small sandy beaches here and there, perfect places to sit on a rock and contemplate the boisterous and muscular flow of the creek. No dramatic highlight: just a green enclave decorated with Old Man’s Beard and lichen-encrusted boulders. Trailhead: North Cascades Highway (WA-20) near MP138.
Young Hill In the early spring, there’s nothing like a bit of grassy hillside with warm sunlight and a lot of open sky. Oh, and while we’re at it, how about a surrounding blue/green mosaic of islands rising from the sun-spangled Salish Sea? This is Young Hill, a small but noble hilltop on San Juan Island, adorned with stately madrone and oak trees. This idyllic setting is reached at the end of a short (1 mile) trail that climbs some 600 feet through luscious forest to emerge into sweet open meadows. Located within San Juan Island National Historic Park, the trailhead is located adjacent to English Camp with its historic structures and now-quiet parade grounds on the placid shores of Garrison Bay. Trailhead: English Camp, West Valley Road, nine miles northwest of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.
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UP in theAIR Climbing in the Canopy
Story and Photos by Nick Belcaster
I
canopy of Deception Pass. Today, I’ll be one of the lucky ones who gets to ascend.
t may seem strange to consider, but old growth forest used to be the norm. Not something we might cordon off and place behind a barricade of red tape and carefully graveled paths, but a biologically diverse and thriving thing: a climax community made up of a grand architecture of multicanopied trees.
Climb
And not just any trees, more often than not these are towering giants of trees, mindbendingly large specimens that shoot off on a single vector against gravity. Trees of the highest order, such as the one I haven’t stopped staring at since I’ve pulled into Deception Pass State Park on an early June Our tree for the day is an old-growth afternoon: a stately coastal Douglas fir some 300 feet high Coastal Douglas fir of some 300 feet. I’ve been studying. I can only nod. Matt Cunningham, my guide Matt works for Adventure Terra, a for the day, isn’t far behind me. “It’s Washington guide outfit that has been something, isn’t it?” craning his neck leading groups into the old growth up to look at the same crown of limbs 10
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It isn’t long before the real business starts, and we’ve been kitted out in all sorts of harnesses, nylon slings and mechanical ascenders. Matt instructs on each piece of equipment’s usage and fitting, ensuring we’re familiar with what we’ll be undertaking. We take a short hike along the shore before ducking back into the dense understory, our pupils dilating to adjust to the dusky and filtered light until we’ve pulled beside a spectacular specimen of a Douglas fir that has been rigged to climb. “Clip in, folks.” We do as instructed and before long are climbing towards the sky, pushing one ascender up the rope, then pushing off on its attached leg loop and pushing up the other ascender. As we rise, the forest floor grows distant: earthy loam and a rich broth of tidal wrack fading into >>> Go to AdventuresNW.com
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96,345: if sawn into one-inch strips the indistinct margins of shadow. and placed end to end, the wood would When I turn inward, the tree ithave reached from the rocky banks of self provides a constant companion as the Nooksack River to the shores of I climb. Its bark is deeply furrowed China. It would have been the largest with the time of many years passed. Becoming ancient is something Douglas firs are especially good at. A Coastal Douglas fir estimated to be some 1,000 years old grows along the San Juan River on the forested fringe of Southern Vancouver Island. In fact, the only other thing these trees do better than grow old is grow tall. Not 50 miles from this Slide. Pull. Stand. Repeat. Our day begins among the salal and Oregon point grew the Nooksack grape of the understory, but ends Giant, a purported 465(!) among the high crowns of firs foot-high Douglas fir that was believed to be 480 tree ever recorded on Earth until it years’ old when it was felled in 1897. went the way of most all of the Pacific Unsurprisingly, given the times, it’s Northwest forest giants and met its end provenance was given in board feet:
stories & the race|play|experience calendar online.
on the teeth of a crosscut saw. A trophy tree. With that in mind, it isn’t at all preposterous to believe that by the time famed botanist Archibald Menzies might have gazed through the swirling mists upon our very tree from the side rail of the HMS Discovery in 1792, it would have already begun its ascension from the undergrowth as one of the lucky ones.
Timeless
As a rock climber, I’m used to scaling heights but this was something fundamentally different. In terms of a medium, rock is predictable, its fluctuations measured in geological time. Comparatively, even these ancient, slow-growing trees practically erupt from the earth in the blink
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from our lofty vantage. To the north of an eye, springing forth in a biologithe span of the Deception Pass bridge cal frenzy. I am ascending living tissue. stretches out, but when I turn just so, 20 more feet now jugging the line and I’ve pulled away from the fledgling maples and tangle of salal and Oregon grape, and all opens above me. Ropes all around, straight as sunbeams, are being ascended. 10 feet more. Right hand, left hand. Stand up. Rinse, repeat. Peppered into our efforts is Matt’s encouragement and his steady stream of facts on glacial recession and Life on the vertical plane. tidal motion. Finally Climbers ascend the lines we pull ourselves onto the upper limbs and the expanse of metal is invisible and I settle into our perches. am treated to a perfectly primeval scene. Atop, Matt has a surprise: a thermos Sunset hues of yellow and orange lie on of mint tea and fig bars. We all take our a quieting sea. Shorebirds flit back and time in surveying the spectacular views
forth between rocky perches. Far, far below now, the waters of Deception Pass boil over in muscular eddies and whirlpools. An eagle sounds off in a whistling rattle. It is a moment of timelessness. After the descent we saunter back to our cars, pile our kits in neat piles, and say our goodbyes. My arms have a familiar burn in them, and also my legs. We’ve worked for our views today. Driving back across the Deception Pass Bridge in the gathering darkness, stars begin to appear in the great dome of sky. I can’t help but crane my neck, head over one shoulder, straining, looking. Looking for the old ANW ones.
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A Beautiful Bad Idea Story by Jacob Hartsoch Photos by Matt Seeley
I
was sprawled out yard-sale style on the Coleman Glacier, high on the slopes of Mt. Baker. One ski was broken. Blood was splattered across the snow. A quick check revealed a perfect circular puncture wound in my thigh from where I’d impaled myself with a broken pole. I was shocked and embarrassed. But mostly, I was crushed. Could I finish what I had started? The mountains. They always have lessons. We left the downtown Bellingham waterfront that morning before dawn on our bikes with skis, boots and climbing gear attached. Our goal was this: to travel—unsupported—via human-power from Bellingham Bay to the summit of Mt. Baker and back. It was a project inspired in part by the original Mount Baker Marathon. In 1911, 19-year old logger Joe Galbraith was whisked out past Deming in a Model T where he hopped out into the darkness and ran to the summit. He returned to Bellingham 12 hours and 28 minutes later. I’d always been unable to wrap my
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On the summit head around the audacity and beauty of that first race. For years I had looked up at the mountain from town and wondered: how fast could you do the whole thing human-powered? The adventure had all the ingredients I was looking for: close to home and low impact, yet it still felt bold and uncertain. Best of all, it involved moving through the mountains I loved with friends. Now here we were in the thick of it. 50 miles and almost 11,000 feet of elevation gain were behind us. Then, in the
joyous excitement of finally skiing downhill I had gotten reckless and jeopardized it all. •••• I grew up in a small Montana town at the base of the Mission mountains, a beautiful untouched place. But the idyllic setting was eclipsed by childhood trauma—physical and sexual abuse —and one of my strongest early memories is of the town prosecutor pulling me into an empty courtroom to practice testifying against the abuser. It was overwhelming. My mom, seeing how I was suffering, marched us out of there with her head held high. There would be no trial. We didn’t really talk about it much after that. Later that winter things started to turn around for me. We didn’t have a lot, but my mom wrangled a few friends to teach me how to ski. I followed them everywhere that season, often out of control. I loved it. The next winter I shoveled sidewalks after school to fund a season pass. One day, when conditions were right, my mentor took me under the rope and we skied an out-of-bounds line that I had eyed on nearly every ride up the
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•••• chairlift. On the traverse back out I felt The project. It had been nearly something new stirring within: confiten years on the drawing board. I dence. It turns out that you never really had always had an excuse. I didn’t lose a day like that. It follows you around have the right partners. I wasn’t fit for decades, changes your trajectory. enough. Conditions weren’t right. Later I discovered climbing. When Now in my mid-forties, time was I was 14, I stood on top of a peak a slipping away. Then this past spring few miles out of town and looked out things began to align just when I across the Flathead Valley and north to needed it most. Glacier National Park. I had scramIt was a polarizing year. I fibled up the last pitch alone, breathless, nally started unpacking the trauma a light wind in my face. That night I Trading leads at first light I had buried away for half a lifeslept next to a mountain lake in my on the Mt. Baker Highway time. Initially the vulnerability felt bivy. It felt like magic. awkward, but it began to break I saved up all summer and bought things loose. I forged new friendships. a ragged little climbing rack and rope I began re-examining my relationship with competition and at an outdoor swap meet at the University of Montana. The college started just getting out and moving fast in the mountains again. It kid who sold me the gear looked worried about the fact that I was felt exhilarating and empowering. Through dark times, my spirit just a kid, but I didn’t care. I started getting out in the mountains stayed anchored to those places, those experiences. Something else was every chance I got. happening too. The painful childhood experiences were slowly filter•••• ing out of my body. I felt competent and free out there. The morning didn’t start well. Fifteen minutes after startOne weekday in May I walked outside with my morning coffee ing out, I got a flat tire on the outskirts of Bellingham, which to have a look at the mountain. It was perfectly clear. I called in to I changed by head lamp. After this setback, we settled into the work, grabbed my gear, and embarked on a quick spontaneous ski flow of the ride up the Mt. Baker Highway towards Glacier in the cool predawn air, trading leads and drafting in the moonlight. Excitement ran high and our laughter drifted into the darkness. The light-hearted mood evaporated after we turned off the highway onto the Glacier Creek Road and began climbing towards the Heliotrope Ridge trailhead. The eight miles of cycling uphill with 20 pounds of extra gear were brutal. With the whole climb and ski left ahead, the day began to feel daunting At the trailhead we stashed the bikes and reconfigured our gear. The mood improved as we jogged up the trail through the woods in morning light. At the Hogsback we transitioned to skis and kept moving as quickly as we could, pausing occasionally to fill our hats with snow in the hot sun. The chemistry of our group was fantastic. We pushed each other but never took things too seriously. Conditions were good, allowing us to skin up the Roman Wall, but we were getting tired. The deep kind. Every kick turn seemed more challenging than the last as we approached the summit. Then there we were, looking out at Glacier Peak and the full sweep of the North Cascades, just a little over eight hours after leaving downtown Bellingham. It felt surreal and we all savored the experience. Here was that magic again. After a quick lunch break we clicked in to our skis and started ripping turns down the mountain. It felt incredible to be heading down, but the snow was getting progressively softer in the heat of the sun. stories & the race|play|experience calendar online.
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up the Coleman-Deming route. It was quiet and windless on the summit and I had it all to myself. It felt spiritual in a way that I can’t describe, like something deep within was shifting. A few weeks later the project came together. I had known Matt ParkFinder.org to find parks near you! Seeley for a long time, our friendship sealed while competing headto-head in one of the early winter triathlons in Montana nearly 20 years ago. Neither of us was getting any younger. He was an incredibly acPhysical Therapy complished athlete, Yoga Therapy but his motivation Manual Therapy seemed completely Education internalized, a trait (360) 656-6963 that I admired. The www.bakertobaypt.com stars aligned. He and his 12 Bellwether Way - Ste 232, Bellingham, WA
bottles Refilling water brother Lane had a few free days and the forecast was excellent. They headed north to Bellingham with a van full of gear and a head for beautiful bad ideas. When the brothers arrived I halfheartedly suggested that we could just do a regular ski of Baker instead of the ambitious human-powered plan, but they were having none of it. We got to work and
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on one good ski. I assumed that the guys spent the evening in a strange revelry of would finish without me and I’d get a attaching gear to our bikes, testing it out ride home from the trail head. by riding down the street, then I had reconfiguring. There were a lot of laughs and a few beers. Then we set the alarm for 3:30 a.m. and tried to sleep. •••• After clearing the Roman Wall on the way down I felt like I was twelve years old again. I started skiing way too fast for the light gear. My ski tip caught in some soft snow and that was it. Boom. Matt and Lane quickly Cruising up the caught up to the scene. Heliotrope Ridg e Trail There was a lot of blood but the puncture had missed any major arteries. We apso much emoplied a compression dressing of gauze tional energy wrapped up in this advenand duct tape and decided to work our ture that I was near tears. But when I put way down to the trailhead and re-assess. on my running shoes, a strange thing I skied carefully back down to the trail
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A Day to Remember 04:00 AM: Left the Bellingham waterfront on gravel bikes loaded with skis and climbing gear. 04:15 AM: Stopped to change a flat tire in the dark just outside of town.
01:10 PM: Broke a ski and pole in a strange high-speed crash below the Colfax icefall. 02:30 PM: Arrived back at the trailhead and loaded up bikes. A climber gave us a bag of potato chips.
07:45 AM: Arrived at the Heliotrope trailhead. The 8 miles up Glacier Creek Road was one of the most challenging stretches of the day.
03:10 PM: Stopped for Coke and ice cream at Graham’s in Glacier and relaxed in the shade.
summit after skinning up from snowline.
06:03 PM: Arrived back at the waterfront, jumped into Bellingham Bay.
04:45 PM: The first of many 08:00 AM: After stashing the road construction delays bikes and reconfiguring gear, where we sat exhausted on we started jogging up the trail. the side of the road in the hot sun waiting to be released. 12:35 PM: Arrived at the
12:50 PM: Started the descent on skis.
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happened: I could run. The bleeding had slowed and the pain was manageable. I loved mountain running so much and banging down the trail with two friends h bouncing off Transitioning to skis for the summit pus rocks with skis on our backs after so much had happened that day felt so ridiculous and simply great. I started to believe again. At the trail head, we loaded our bikes and started down. It was awkward with the gear weighing down the bikes, but we enjoyed a sweeping descent into Glacier. We stopped at Grahams for ice cream and Coke and sat under a tree. My stomach shut down after the crash and the lack of calories and fluids had caught up with me. I left a few minutes ahead of the guys and had a long talk with myself on the Mt. Baker Highway. I knew I could just coast all the way back to town, but I didn’t want to let the guys down. Though I had done a lot of work trying to identify why I felt such a need to push my limits in the mountains, part of me just really loved effort. Going fast still mattered. After a few miles the brothers caught up and we started trading pulls again. It was brutally hot and multiple times we were stopped along long lines of cars for road construction. It
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felt like a punch to the gut after the long day, but there was nothing we could do. We got some awfully strange looks standing next to the flaggers with our bikes and gear.
OUTSIDE IN Reflections on Wilderness by Kathy and Craig Copeland
Photo by John D’Onofrio
EXALTATION Wilderness reminds us how beautiful the world is and how fortunate we are, but also how dispassionate, unpredictable and hazardous the world is, and how vulnerable we are. Wilderness reminds us to live fully now. Extracted from Heading Outdoors Eventually Leads Within by Kathy and Craig Copeland (hikingcamping.com)
Back at Wayfair Park & just a little bit wrecked
shady side of the Granary building and emptied the contents of my stomach a few times. We had done it. I was proud of both the effort and the style. The connection I had with my partners and with the
mountain that day is something that I won’t forget. That night, after getting my injuries properly cleaned up and absorbing some fluids, I laid down amidst a pile of gear and felt something else: Release. And then, I slept. ANW
I always envisioned being a hero on this journey, riding strongly all the way back to town. It didn’t work out that way. But my friends carefully nursing me back the last 20 miles really stirred my soul. In the end, we arrived at Wayfair park and jumped in the bay. In total we cycled 90 miles, ran four, and skied nine, with a combined elevation gain of 12,700 feet. The trip took just over 14 hours. My body was destroyed. I sat down on the
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Finding the
Rocky ridge lines of the North Cascades. Photo by Abram Dickerson
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Flow
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A Trail Runner’s Journey Story by Abram Dickerson
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hat calls? What beckons?
backpackers. The beauty of the wild has inspired legions of adventurers who’ve turned their passion, creativity, and physical capacity to the remote, the wil-
What primeval invitation is answered when the comforts of modernity are exchanged for dirt, rain, and rocks? A better body? A more enviable digital platform? A belt buckle? Bar room bragging rights? For sure each of those things have their appeal: the ego is a force to be reckoned with. Yet, stripped of pretense, weathered, worn, and removed from the Wi-Fi and screens, all posturing and presumption is Cloudscape over Mt. Rainier. rendered moot. In the hills Photo by Abram Dickerson the hurt is real, the miles are long, the climbs are derness, and the unknown. Today more steep, and one’s physio-psycho capacity runners are taking to the hills, bringing a is the only currency that holds any value. different style—and new eyes—to what’s The mountains have long been possible in the mountains. the inspiration of climbers, hikers, and
Running is simple and yet, like all arts, its mastery is full of complexity. Running is arguably woven into our human anatomical and evolutionary DNA. For generations, our ancestors used their legs and lungs as transport while hunting, gathering, and commuting across the landscape. Our upright position, large glutes, skin that sweats, and neurological adaptations have all been tied to the act of running. Yet today we hunch over our keyboards, stare into our screens, and slay our dinner as it sits packaged, preserved, and wrapped in plastics on grocery aisles. To run is to forsake the trappings of modernity, to exchange the comforts of tangible things we buy for the intangible things we earn. For many, running is a sport. It’s measured,
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the familiar are reached and surpassed, marked, and defined by distances and giving way to uncertainty. This is the time. However, outside of the race, runliminal state, the threshold of the senses ning has other meanings. It is a practice, where we leave determinates behind and a discipline, a meditation. It is movement unto itself. It is freedom. To bring that quality of running Summit clouds from the top of Church Mountain. into the mountains is to return Photo by Abram Dickerson physically and psychologically to a more raw and rhythmic state within nature. When running in the mountains, the terms are clear: light, fast, and exposed. Conquering them is an illusion, but the journey to the edge of our individual/collective human capacity blurs the line between sport and spirituality. Initially, the miles are easy and one can move swiftly on embrace the unknown: terrain, weather, wings of anticipation and fresh legs. how far will our legs carry us? Here the The trail is familiar and well trodden. rewards await. However, as the day lengthens, and Deep in the wild, every ridge crest, the miles accumulate, the margins of
summit, and turn in the trail is a revelation. Running becomes a state of perpetual unfolding, a return to a childlike state where everything is captured in itself. One can remain in that eternal present so long as the intrusion of thought can be resisted. Listen! In this space one can hear the universe: the sounds of creation unfolding in the cascading streams, the wind moving through forests, and in the echoes of time unraveling. Here we receive both the gifts‌ and the questions the wild holds for us. This state of flow, of course, is an ideal. It is the culmination of careful physical preparations embedded in the context of a beautiful trail and is conditional upon preserving a state of mind that lives in the moment. There are plenty of ways for this ideal to go awry, chief among them,
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Sometimes a run is simply hard. judgment. It’s easy to fall into the trap When returning to activity from an of thinking that the run must be about injury or hiatus, the work of recovering pushing speed or distance. Far too many times I’ve heard runners qualifying their experience with “I only ran for X miles” or “I would have been faster but…” These self-depreciating qualifications stem from external comparisons that assume a certain distance, speed, or effort is required for a run to “count.” Here the intrusion of our insecurities, our concern for Mt. Shuksan and the Curtis Glacier. Photo by Bacchus Taylor personal presentation in the social milieu, fitness can be punishing. Some days the and the skewed expectations that arise fatigue, the effort, the climbs, the rain, from comparing our efforts with others the loneliness of it all can be overwhelmcan rob us of our connectivity and the joy ing. Moments when everything hurts. of the hills.
No worthwhile effort in the mountains is without hardship. Sacrifice and the inevitable questioning of the decision to subject ourselves to the suffering are woven into the calculus of the experience. Runs in the hills are journeys and each has a story. When we leave the sanctuary of the trails and return to a polarized, commoditized, currencydriven, digital world, we choose how to narrate our experience. We all have an audience. Our family, our friends, our colleagues, and most importantly, ourselves. When we tell these stories will the emphasis be about how we conquered or cried? Will the story glorify the suffering
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or reflect finding solace in the hurt, beauty, and sublimity of it all? Will the story be defined by statistics or will it describe the process of becoming unburdened, accepted, connected, and embraced by the wild? What attitudes and relationships to the wild will our stories perpetuate? The mountains don’t care. Compared to our brief visit to this realm, they are eternal. In our lifetimes, we write our narrative on the mountain’s face and project our egos against its rock, all without so much as leaving a scratch. Our footprints evaporate against the geologic rhythm of glaciers dancing with the climatic shifts that carved the valleys and ridges. What then of our story? What consequences do our travels and travails hold? Herein lies the mystery and the motivation. The mountain is the altar. Our elective and arbitrary objectives are our offering. How will we define these experiences and how will they define us? The best way to find out is to run. Identify a peak, a ridgeline, a lake, a place
deep in the hills where the trails are narrow, the views are promising, and the difficulty lies just outside of what’s reasonable. Find the place on the map that calls to your creativity and to your sense of adventure. Hold to the vision, the inspiration, the uncertainty of what lies between here and there and give yourself over to the mystery. ANW Abram Dickerson loves the mountains. He’s found that running is the easiest way to get into the hills for an adventure while balancing the demands and joys of parenting. As the founder of Aspire Adventure Running, he shares the challenge and beauty of the mountains with runners of all abilities. Check out their trips at www.AspireAdventureRunning.com
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Inspiring Passion A Conversation with David Guterson Interview by Roger Gilman Illustrations by Justin Gibbens
D
avid Guterson’s writing is well-known to readers in the Pacific Northwest. His 1994 novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, which won the PEN/Faulkner and the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award, sold four million copies and was adapted for the screen. He has written 10 other books, including novels, non-fiction, short stories and poetry, and has published numerous articles in Harper’s Magazine, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and other publications. His most recent work, Turn Around Time: A Walking Poem for the Pacific Northwest, was published in September by Mountaineers Books. In addition to writing, Guterson is a life-long hiker and environmentalist.
in the eastern frontal range, so I go up its river valleys often—the North Fork Skokomish, the Hamma Hamma, the Duckabush, the Dosewallips, the Quilcene, the Dungeness, the Greywolf. Each river valley road allows access to a handful of trails, and annually I walk as many as I can. They all
natural interest in the unknown. On the other hand, familiar places change from year to year as a result of water in motion, and due to fire and avalanche, and as a result offer up the interest of transformation. I’m also enthralled by visits to the same terrain in different weather and seasons.
What prompted you to start hiking? Family circumstances. I was born in Seattle and grew up there. Two of my uncles were trip leaders for The Mountaineers. I got to tag along on Mountaineer outings at a young age, and liked doing that from the beginning.
Where are your favorite places to hike? I’ve lived in Kitsap County for the past 37 years, and that has oriented me toward the Olympic Mountains. Accessible day hikes for me are mostly 26
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Photo by Frank McCord
have their pleasures, but I especially like getting up into the Sawtooth Range at the southern end of my day hike reach, and into The Needles at the northern end.
What are the relative values of a new destination vs. returning to a familiar spot? A hike to a summit or lake I’ve never been to before is marked by a
What are the relative values of walking alone versus walking with a companion? I love to spend a full day with a hiking partner. It’s rare to have that sort of time and opportunity for conversation, and the context of hiking seems to spur a wide ranging and easeful back and forth that I enjoy. Solo hiking, on the other hand, induces in me an inten>>> Go to AdventuresNW.com
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sity of thought at times marked by rabid profusion and at others by focused clarity.
Why hike? What are its deepest values, given the nature of the activity? On the one hand, we might properly view hiking as a pastime—something people do for enjoyment, and in that regard no different from golf or bowling. On the other, a walk can be a stimulus to thought and emotion, and to creativity and appreciation, just as it was for the poets Wordsworth and Basho, for John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, and for the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein, all of whom walked inveterately, and all of whom understood the association between persistent walking and the shapes of their inner lives.
What changes in you during a hike? Of course we are leaving the mundane world behind, with its to-do list and demands, its obligations and responsibilities, and are set free in some fashion in wild country—which is not to say that hiking is escape, because I think we return from it with a renewed clarity that informs our lives in broad and important ways. We’re made smaller in a healthy fashion by our forays into wilderness. The sheer scope of the natural world, and the breadth of time evident in so many of its particulars, puts our lives and concerns in a useful perspective.
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The Crux At the crux we’ll have to take light’s measure with neither guides nor verses. We’ll turn our childhood compasses back and read our self-made futures. There’s an all-or-nothing pitch to our long sojourn. There’s the climber who slid into the pink crevasse with no last chance at sunset, the climber who pinned the Angel of Death in a grip that became a seizure. We might end in limbo. We might free-fall snow-blind with our lives painted on our glasses. Let’s close a circle in this world, then: there’s a late slant of light to get home in. We’ll bring back freedom, mingle in markets, streams will meander, flowers grow, and love pour out of mountains. Excerpted with permission from Turn Around Time: A Walking Poem for the Pacific Northwest (Mountaineers Books, September 2019) by David Guterson; illustrations by Justin Gibbens.
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My Favorite Hikes By David Guterson My favorite hikes are on trails up the west end river valleys of the Olympic Peninsula—the two forks of the Hoh, the two forks of the Quinault, and the Queets (which must be forded at outset). All of them pass through dream-like rain forest—sometimes through spruce and maple bottoms, and sometimes through stands of quiet hemlock and cedar.
Explain the meaning of your title ‘Turn Around Time’. How does this serve as your root metaphor? My new book is called Turn Around Time: A Walking Poem for the Pacific Northwest. It includes illustrations by artist Justin Gibbens, who like me has spent a lot of time out of doors in our part of the world. The title refers in explicit terms
These trails are lonely in fall and winter. They lack the rigors of relentless ascent and it’s a pleasure to clock off their miles at a steady clip. They are stately at times, and for long stretches, level. The will of living things speaks for itself along these river trails. I find myself possessed by a quiet awe while walking them, by a celebratory spirit, and by a sense of reverence. I feel at home in beauty and impermanence.
to the mountaineer’s practice of establishing, in advance of a summit attempt, a time at which the party will return to camp, regardless of whether its goal has been reached. I make figurative use of this notion in my book, exploring how it might fit into our lives as we contend with our professional and personal ambitions. I want to suggest that if we live long enough, there comes a time when the ambitions that have driven us forward in life can imperil our well-being and the well-being of those around us. As Carl Jung put it, “We cannot live the afternoon of our life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true at evening will have become a lie.”
What are your thoughts on conserving the territory we love to hike in? What should we be doing to ensure that we and our grandchildren can continue to walk in the woods? These questions are subsumed by
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the larger and more critical question of our global climate crisis. We can work locally for preservation, but our efforts unfold in a larger context that threatens to render them useless. That said, little work of importance with regard to conservation of any sort unfolds without the
passion induced by direct experience of the natural world. I’m talking about love here, about the kind of love for this earth that derives from direct experience of it, without which we are doomed. So long as the earth remains a distant abstraction, its processes unfolding beyond the reach of our lives, we will not do enough to insure that future generations can live here without suffering and duress. What, then, can we do about this peril? I think that each of us has a role to play,
and work to do on behalf of the earth. In my own case, that means making use of the power of the written word to inspire and nurture love of nature. At bottom, this is the purpose of my book. ANW
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A Wing and a Prayer Ken Salzman’s Avian Passion
I
t was 1981. I was fishing on the American River in Sacramento, California. As the first light of dawn began to shimmer on the surface of the river, a ray of golden morning sunlight illuminated a solitary Great Blue Heron in the mist. That was the day I traded my fishing rod for a camera and my passion for bird photography and birding began. The beauty and behavior of birds has fascinated me ever since. And this fascination, combined with the challenge of photographing these often reticent subjects, has fueled a lifetime’s worth of remarkable encounters with these elegant creatures. See more of Ken’s exquisite wildlife photography at kensalzman.zenfolio.com.
ANW
Visit AdventuresNW.com to view an extended gallery of Ken Salzman’s avien photography. Top row starting at right (L to R): Short-eared Owl, Snow Geese, Bald Eagle Second row, opposite page (L to R): Northern Harrier, Ring-necked Pheasant Third row starting below (L to R): Snowy Owl, Great Egret, Rough-legged Hawk, Cedar Waxwing, Rufous Hummingbird Bottom row (L to R): Hooded Merganser, American Wigeon, Northern Pintail, Wood Duck, Canada gosling
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A Mt. Baker Circumnavigation Story and Photos by Jeff List
A
s I stumbled down the rocky Swift Creek Trail in the dark, every side creek, ravine, and small gully was simply gushing—all tumbling into Swift Creek in the valley bottom below. Soon I would have to ford this creek at a notorious crossing, and my apprehension was on the rise—was it my imagination or did Swift Creek sound louder every time I passed a feeder stream? I was 22 hours into a circumnavigation of Mt. Baker and I just couldn’t entertain the thought of turning around and climbing 4,000 feet back up to Artist’s Point to Skyline Divide bail. But luckily it got light just before arriving at the ford, and making no effort to find the best place to cross, I just plunged right in and nearly found myself swimming across a deep pool. I crawled out on the far bank. Sweet! The last major unknown was behind me! When the Hardrock Hundred Endurance Run that I had been training for was abruptly cancelled in June, I had 32
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felt kind of lost until my son suggested I do a circumnavigation of our local active volcano, Mt. Baker. It immediately sounded like a good idea. I’ve always liked circumnavigations. I’d completed the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier several times, negotiated the partially-
off trail loop around Mt. Adams, and had been working on a loop around Mt. Olympus for six years and counting. My kind of circumnavigation is entirely on foot (no skis, no bike), with no glacier travel and no rock scrambling harder than a moderate class 3. In other words, reasonable for solo travel within my own personal comfort limits.
Had such a Mt. Baker circumnavigation been done before? Extensive internet searching and talking to knowledgeable locals turned up only one previous effort. In 2007 David Hess and Doug Shepard completed a very difficult loop in a total of 25 days, 11 hours, which included a two-week break to recuperate from the tremendous beatdown they endured. The aesthetics of their route seemed to dictate very little trail or forest road, staying as close to the glaciers as possible while traversing an endless series of devil’s club-choked gullies, extremely steep slopes, and difficult river fords. I didn’t want to suffer nearly as much as Hess and Shepard, and I definitely didn’t want it to take as long, but could it be done more easily? I had spent countless hours on the computer with resources Hess and Shepard never had, and had made six trips to the mountain to piece it together. My route would be a compromise between Hess and Shepard’s aesthetically pure route that traversed mostly just below the glaciers and a route >>> Go to AdventuresNW.com
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July 20, 2019, heading up the switchthat might drop down to major roads backs of Forest Service (FS) Road 38. to avoid sections not connected by trail. At the end of the drivable road, I took Recon days focused on the off-trail secan unofficial, very steep trail straight up tions where I would have to climb or descend 4000 feet between forest and alpine, as well as alpine Circumnavigation Route traverses where the slope maps promised a challenge. Almost miraculously, every recon trip was an amazing success. I encountered no particularly tough bushwhacking, no significant devil’s club, and there had always been a fairly easy way to thread through the cliff bands and steep gullies once I learned the lay of the land. I could hardly believe it—the game was on! Although there were still to treeline on what I call Rankin Ridge three major alpine cross-country sections (because it’s next to Rankin Creek). I hadn’t previewed, I took a chance that Finding this trail during a recon day had it would all work out and started the been one of the many unexpected gifts circumnavigation clockwise from the of the route—Hess and Shepard had Ridley Creek Trailhead at 6:08 a.m. on
suffered a difficult bushwhack to reach treeline here. I then traversed northeast uphill and cross-country through heather meadows and talus slopes to the edge of a small glacier coming down from Seward Peak, part of the looming Black Buttes extinct volcano range. A most spectacular spot! From here I had about three or four miles of alpine crosscountry travel, unpreviewed. Terra Incognita. First, I had to get down a steep snow slope with some rocky runout, which was a little tricky with the snow still frozen from a cold night (I didn’t bring crampons). With some care I was soon traversing a huge bowl directly under the Black Buttes. Crossing the outwash of the Thunder Glacier, I came across a piece of riveted aluminum, which likely washed down from the remains of a Navy plane that crashed into the glacier in 1943, killing six, but hadn’t
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the Deadhorse Creek valley over to the been found until 51 years later when the Cougar Divide, I was back on trail again! glacier finally gave it up. Or at least abandoned trail. The Cougar I jogged down the only paved part of the loop, 3.7 miles on FS-39, Glacier Creek Rd, and exited at abandoned FS3940. I would have loved to eliminate this paved part of the route, but the options were limited by some very rough topography between the Heliotrope Ridge Trail and Chowder Ridge, and a potentially dangerous ford of Glacier Creek. Hess and Shepard took about 12 hours (not including a night’s sleep) to travel about four miles beHeadwaters of Wells Creek, tween the Heliotrope Ridge below Coleman Pinnacle trail and Chowder Ridge, while my route took about Divide Trail is going back to nature now five hours and covered eight miles. Twice that the long access road to the trailhead the distance, but way easier. (FS-33) is closed. It’s still not hard to After bushwhacking up to the follow, but without any maintenance, it base of Chowder Ridge and traversing
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won’t be long before it’s another lost trail. The Cougar Divide Trail is not quite as scenic as the nearby Skyline Divide Trail, but still has fantastic views of Mt. Baker from another angle, and it would be a shame to lose it. At the Cougar Divide Trailhead, I had a seven-mile road walk down abandoned FS-33, still mostly a good dirt road but soon to be overgrown and covered by blowdowns and slides if it isn’t maintained. The huge switchbacks on FS-33 could possibility be shortcutted through the woods, but without previewing it I couldn’t risk encountering tough bushwhacking. At the bottom of FS-33 I crossed a bridge over Bar Creek, impassible to vehicles due to a washedout ramp on one end, and ended my road walk near the base of Lasiocarpa Ridge.
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My off-trail route up Lasiocarpa Ridge started with a short brushy climb to gain the ridge, but for most of the next 2000 vertical feet, the going was amazingly easy through an old-growth forest with little ground cover. It did get extremely steep in parts, but at those points animals helped me out with nice switchbacked trails. It got dark during the steep climb through the big trees, and my plan to get back on trail before nightfall was way off target. Two glowing eyes ahead gave me a momentary adrenaline rush but it was just a deer.
There’s nothing as welcome as seeing your first heather after a long uphill bushwhack! The knife edge crux is a 10-foot scramble down broken rock through tree branches, right next to a full- on cliff. I was definitely grateful that I’d previewed this part so I wasn’t fumbling around in the dark here. This is another spot where the route could have easily failed, but nope, another lucky passage. Soon after the knife edge, the route broke into heather meadows, and there’s nothing as welcome as seeing your first heather after a long uphill bushwhack! After a bit of side-hill scrambling over large talus and moderate gullies, the route now opened to a traverse of the up-
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per Wells Creek Basin, just as the waning moon rose over Ptarmigan Ridge. On the recon hike there had been a low overcast and now it was pretty dark, but the moon was bright enough see what a grand place it is. I look forward to really seeing it someday. I hadn’t previewed the connection between Wells Creek basin and the Ptarmigan Ridge Trail, but it turned out to be pretty easy even by headlamp, and I had now done all the off-trail sections I hadn’t previewed, another big step! From the Ptarmigan Ridge Trail, Mt. Baker glowed in the moonlight behind me, showing yet another of its many faces. The Ptarmigan Ridge and Chain Lakes Trails took me past sleepy Artist’s Point, and the Wild Goose and Lake Ann Trails put me on the Swift Creek Trail, which can be terribly bushy but by luck had just been cleared. After a bit of unnecessary worry about water levels, I welcomed the daylight, now past the last route uncertainty, to rest at the Swift Creek Ford, and ended this long trail segment at the Baker Hot Springs parking area. From there, I had a seven-mile walk on unpaved and pretty deserted Forest Service roads, with a 20-minute nap at an irresistible spot bathed by early morning sunlight, to arrive at the Boulder Ridge Trailhead. The many large blowdowns on the Boulder Ridge Trail had just been cleared—what, was there a whole team of unseen people clearing my circumnav route just ahead of me?! It had been foggy during the
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Trip Summary: • July 20-21, 2019 • Time: 38 hours, 13 min, 32 sec. • Mode of travel: solo, • Unsupported Distance: 71.6 miles • Vertical Gain: 22,753 feet • Calories consumed: 5,400 • Sleep: 20 minutes • Footwear/tech gear: Inov-8 Mudclaw G 260 shoes, two Whippet poles • Surface traveled: 41% Trail, 31% Road (3.7 miles paved), 28% Off-trail
recon, so at the top of the trail I got my first view of Mt. Baker’s twin peaks, the Boulder Glacier, and the route ahead. The first obstacle upon leaving the trail was getting across Boulder Creek. During the recon I had forded immediately without difficulty, despite a waterfall about 100 feet downstream. But on the circumnavigation the creek
was running too high to cross safely here. Later I compared photos from the recon and the circumnavigation, and the creek was running at exactly the same level! I guess 30 hours of tough mountain travel can influence risk assessment. But I had checked out easier fording spots upstream during the recon, anticipating a problem here, and I was on my way after crossing Boulder Creek without much trouble. After another fairly easy contourfollowing traverse, I hit the climber’s trail for the Squak Glacier route up Mt. Baker. I had no map, either paper or on my phone, that showed how the climber’s trail connected to the Scott Paul Trail, but I knew it did and I just kept following it down until it connected. This cost me about a mile and maybe 400 feet of extra elevation gain, but I didn’t care—I was happy to be home free on trails now. After seven more miles on the Scott Paul, Park Butte, Bell Pass, and Ridley
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Creek Trails, I finished the circumnavigation just before dark. It was sort of a surreal experience to walk up to my truck from the opposite direction than I had left it the day before, having looped all the way around Mt. Baker. Although it took over 38 hours, it was far easier than I could have hoped when I started the project. But I was still beat and the night was spent crashed in the back of my truck. In the morning I headed down to the Acme Diner for blueberry pancakes – but ANW they’re closed on Mondays. I’m not going to make my full GPS track publicly available. Anyone wanting to do a Mt. Baker circumnavigation should figure out their own exact route and have solid off-trail experience. This article is a shortened version of my original account which can be viewed at: https://sites.google.com/site/jeffstrailroutes/ Home/mt-baker-circumnavigation
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Notes from the
Arctic Circle Trail Story by Abby Sussman and August Allen Photos by August Allen
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Niviarsiaq, or Dwarf Fireweed, is the national flower of Greenland
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T
he Arctic Circle Trail (ACT) is a hundred-mile overland trek from the airport town of Kangerlussuaq to the fishing village of Sisimiut in west Greenland. It traverses from the edge of the Greenland ice sheet to the outer coast over a rolling landscape of Arctic tundra. We hiked it in August 2018.
Here are a few notes from our journal on the trip.
running under a natural ice bridge, as well as exposing some beautifully tortured granite bedrock. Wary arctic hares browse around while we pack up. How on earth did two Americans from the Pacific Northwest find themselves at this unlikely place? A bit of background: A series of connections and coincidences connected us with shortterm jobs at a remote research facility on the top of the ice sheet. We worked at Summit Station for just a month, an unusual contract that finished in mid-
Day 1 (by Gus) After a long day of preparation and logistical comedy, we score a bumpy shuttle ride out of Kanger, up a long sandy road to the edge of the ice. Our first camp is near the massive ice wall of the Russells Glacier, actually the toe of a relatively miniscule offshoot The rule of thumb in Greenland is that if of the unimaginably you can see the water, it is safe to drink huge Greenland ice sheet. We cook rice August, before the high-latitude weather and lentils under a stunning pink 11 turned and made adventures like this p.m. sunset. We take several hours in decidedly chillier propositions. Since the the morning to explore this unique spot company provided travel from the States, before properly beginning our hike. we were able to afford a trip that is made The retreating edge of the glacier is in cost-prohibitive to many by limited and constant flux. It has created a waterfall
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pricey flights to and from Greenland. After several hours of rainy hiking away from the ice, we encounter our first muskox. A herd of seven, with two calves. The wooly ungulates eye us from the top of a hill, but allow a good look before they wander away. These holdovers from the ice age are an important part of the local economy. Their inner wool, called qiviut, is one of the softest, warmest natural fibers found anywhere. Apparel knit from qiviut is highly prized. Locals and international sport hunters also take muskox for meat. We hear it tastes like bison. Observing these gentle creatures with their hanging shaggy coats and upturned horns, suckling their young, grazing on lichen and sparring with each other, suggests a portrait of ancient Greenlandic tundra from long before humans arrived here from northern Canada. The route transitions from sandy road to the thick tundra mat which soaks my (theoretically waterproof) shoes and makes our progress slow. At the end of the day we ascend to a high point on the ridge and set up the tent. We watch sheets of rain obscure the terrain in all directions while Abby cooks
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pasta over the PocketRocket. Our dessert is the same every night–we have arrived at the height of blueberry season.
At 5 a.m. we can no longer ignore the bright sun lighting up the tent, so we rouse ourselves with coffee and half-
Day 4 (by Abby) As someone who reliably needs to stumble out of the tent for a midnight pee, the starry night sky is a new and welcome experience from the 24-hour daylight of the last few weeks. Gus is happy that I shake him to take a look, even if it means momentarily allowing the frigid arctic air A bachelor group of muskox to invade his sleeptolerates each other’s company ing bag. At this time of year the daylight heartedly tend to packing up. This isn’t shrinks by about 20 minutes each day, our first long trip together, so we easily so today we get sundown at 10 p.m. and navigate the tasking without much need sunrise at 3:30 a.m.
for discussion–one of the pleasures of having a steady adventure companion. The morning’s hike follows the south shore of Amitsorsuaq, a 12-mile-long lake, with banded cliffs on the far side reflected perfectly in the clearest water either of us have seen anywhere. We stop for lunch at the Canoe Center, a long-agoabandoned business venture with an impressive collection of jettisoned empty fuel canisters stashed away by other hikers. Trash removal is unfortunately a problem at all of the ACT huts. The guidebook mentions that canoes are sometimes available for use here, but we
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don’t find any. I pull together a lunch of powdered peanut butter and crumbles of Danish dark bread, now a staple for us. We eat under a blue sky, but eye ominous clouds across the lake. We navigate through boggy territory at the lake outflow through a long narrow valley, ending our day on the shore of the never-ending lake Tasersuaq. That evening, a juvenile arctic fox circles our camp to investigate the smell of our tortellini before making pawprints down the beach away from us.
Day 5 (by Abby)
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Paddy Dillon is a prolific author of trekking guidebooks describing routes all over the world
An early start lets us leap-frog a British hiking club of about 12 members as they break down their camp at a beach just over the next bluff. With that crowd behind us for good, we climb towards a series of rocky outcrops that top out at about 1200 feet, the high point on the route. We suffer a stiff wind for a panoramic view of Tasersuaq before dipping down into a valley of small, interconnected lakes, terrain which feels like the subalpine of our home mountains, the North Cascades. We find ourselves overlooking the wide valley of the Itinneq River, and we need to choose between camping early and pushing hard to ford the river and move out of the lowland to the next hut. We elect to push; it’s sunny now and it might not be tomorrow. The river is waist-deep and icy, but the crossing proves simple and our travel underwear benefits from the rinse. We end our
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gross, so we mostly avoid them and pitch our tent in more private locations. On this evening however, we elect to cook our instant mashed potatoes and lentils indoors, and engage in a little human conversation. Being out of the rain is a pleasant respite.
Day 9 (by Gus) Hard rain traps us in the tent overnight for a solid 12 hours. When we finally emerge, the whole world is a soggy mess and there is fresh snow on the tops of the hills no more than a few hundred feet above us. The trail is so muddy that I abandon my hiking shoes entirely and slog the four-ish miles to the end of the valley in my Crocs. My feet go numb several times, but the stream crossings are greatly simplified. Gaining a rise at the bottom of the valley gives a sweeping view of Kangerluarsuk Tulleq fjord. Sparse seaside cabins dot the far shore, the first sign of non-recreational human occupation since Kangerlussuaq. The route follows the south shore of the fjord by traversing a steep and rocky hillside. Difficult stretches of mud make for slow going even here, where one might expect the steep terrain to allow good drainage. Toward the end of the day we ascend a gulley, passing the best waterfall on the trail since the cascade at the edge of the ice sheet, a lifetime ago. Near the top of the climb, we leave the trail and bump over a couple of rock ribs, where we locate
The Best Campsite Ever™, a flat rock platform with an indescribable view of nearly the entire fjord a thousand feet below us. I spread out all of our soggy gear (nearly everything we’re carrying) to dry in the sun while Abby makes us tea using rainwater from a hollow in the rock. As the sun threatens to set we
POETRY FROM THE WILD
Everything Moistens With Love by Jim Bertolino Somewhere the proposition that heals with a caress of eagle feather, that pulls a mountain range through the wing-bone of a wren to let it blossom. Look for the endless forms of the one thing: sunflower as cougar’s eye, glacier, underwater spider with its bubble of air, slow river of snail, spiral nebula – the way everything moistens with love, hastens with fire. Listen to the shrill piping of silica inside the high Douglas Fir. Hear everywhere the electron’s Bright chirp, and the deep hum Of the Earth calling you home.
The heartbeat of Cascadia
Photo by John D’Onofrio
day walking along a small rocky ridge that leads us to the head of a fjord before gaining the last of the day’s elevation. Arriving at Eqalugaarniarfik Hut (Sound it out: Ee-Qua-Loo-Gar-NeeArr-Fik), we find a cast of characters packed like sardines in the bunks of the cozy space. Among them is none other than Paddy Dillon, the British author of the one and only Englishlanguage guidebook on the Arctic Circle Trail. He is back in Greenland after ten years to make updates. Our copy of his book is the Kindle edition, so he regrettably can’t sign it. He waxes about trekking on the Faroe Islands, the Azores, Malta. He may like to talk even more than he likes to walk. The ACT doesn’t see nearly the volume of traffic we have experienced on the trails in the U.S. We have seen estimates of perhaps 1,500 users per year, which seems plausible. This is the peak of the season, however, and the huts show the strain of relatively heavy traffic. Even in winter, the route sees use by dog mushers, so the huts are frequented year-round. There are no pit toilets or outhouses. Hikers are expected to bury their waste. Used toilet paper is a particularly pernicious issue; we suspect it’s largely left by winter users who are simply unable to bury it properly in the frozen ground. We find nearly all the huts to be just a little
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Sweeping views of tundra make the landscape “feel” high to our mid-latitude sensibilities, belying a low true elevation. No point on the ACT is above 1300 feet.
cook our last trail meal: Tortellini with sun-dried tomatoes, with red sauce from a tube of tomato paste.
Day 10 (by Abby) As on any good trek, seeing signs
that we’re nearing the end brings both a relief and a bit of sadness: our Greenlandic adventure is nearly over. The route descends through the narrow head of a valley and passes a single chair lift strung out on a bare hillside.
There is no road here so we imagine an incongruous scene of snow machines, tracked vehicles, and dogsleds parked at the bottom of the ski hill while locals snowplow and slalom in the dark winter.
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GREENLAND
The ACT stretches from the ice cap to Baffin Bay
In typical Arctic fashion, sled dogs are chained to small hutches on the outskirts of Sisimiut. We hear their racket from a distance before we see a single building. We walk through a small city of them lounging in the sunshine. A bark from one sets off a chorus and it is clear that nobody can ever sneak into Sisimiut from this direction. The valley finally opens to overlook brightlypainted buildings clustered on rocky hills surrounding a natural protected port filled with ships, leading out to shining Baffin Bay. After ten days of muddy trails, river crossings, caribou, foxes, and few other humans, it is startling and not entirely comfortable to find ourselves on a busy street corner scratching our heads over our enormous trail map as we consult
the tiny road inset for the way to a hotel. We eye restaurants advertising meal specials to hikers on our way through town. We are ignored entirely by the local Greenlanders, and receive only sideways glances from European tourists milling around in colored jackets; red from one cruise ship, yellow from another. The Seaman’s Hotel has exactly one tiny room left, with one twin bed and a bathroom shared down the hall. They wouldn’t normally rent this to a couple, but we cajole the clerk into wheeling a second bed in for us. We sip instant coffee and munch french fries in the cafeteria while they prepare the room, revelling in the simple joys of pack-free people-watching, indoor plumbing, and that ineffable satisfaction of an unlikely plan successfully executed. ANW
Check out an extended gallery of August Allen’s Greenland photography at AdventuresNW.com
VITAL SIGNS Lighten Up - Tips for Beating the Winter Blues By Sarah Laing, B.Sc. Nutrition
This winter has been one of the rainiest I can remember since I moved to the PNW 15 years ago, and although the rushing waterfalls and lush greenery don’t hurt the eyes, being socked-in can come with challenges when it comes to your health. There are a few things in particular that can help steer us to a healthier and more positive place, one being the power of the ‘parkscription’ trend. Getting out into the incredible nature we have in our backyard never fails to make a gloomy day seem a little brighter, stories & the race|play|experience calendar online.
not to mention the physical health benefits derived from going for a hike or hitting the mountain. We know that chemicals like serotonin, dopamine and vitamin D have something to do with it, but for me, the benefits don’t stop there. Getting outdoors also tends to prompt me to choose moodboosting foods such as lean protein, dark leafy greens, walnuts and kimchi, and instills a sense of accomplishment that might otherwise be replaced with low self esteem, a key marker of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Whatever your activity of choice, getting a regular dose of the outdoors is one of the best natural remedies.
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Remembering Fishtown Art and Nature on the Skagit River Story by Lorraine Wilde
I
as retreats from Seattle’s bustling city life. Over the next two decades the pair came and went between Seattle and La Conner—and around the world. Anderson settled in the La Conner area permanently in the 50s. A 1953 Life Magazine article explains that they were mystics because “their work embodies a mystical feeling La Conner was once home to a rustic toward life and the uniartists’ colony, Fishtown, verse.” They combined where creatives sought the natural world of the solitude and spirithe U.S. Pacific Coast tual connection to the with the influence of wildlife, misty mornings their travels and studand broad sunsets along ies of Arabic, Japanese, the mighty Skagit River. Chinese and Buddhist From the 1960s to the art and culture, creat80s these artists built a ing an art form that beunique camaraderie—a came distinctive of the communit y—whose Northwest. style and aesthetic went La Conner already on to influence and had vacationers and shape the work of other tourists, but the presartists throughout the ence of Anderson and Pacific Northwest and Graves—and those they around the world. befriended—helped the Although Fishtown Annual photo taken of Skagit Valley Barn Shows artists in 1995. Middle row includes Bud is no more, La Conner Anderson (center in hat), Clayton James (far right in glasses), show host Lavone Newell-Reim (at local community develop a deeper appreciation for and Skagit Valley are Anderson’s right elbow), and Maggie Wilder (left of Newell-Reim). Photo by Cathy Stevens art and a greater accepstill home to a thriving tance of eccentricity. Modern Art. The fourth Mystic, Guy arts community full of talent and sophisThat openness and sophistication Anderson grew up as a friend of Graves tication that belies the small town feel. gradually fostered a new generation of in Edmonds, WA. northwest artists and attracted others In 1936 Graves and Anderson began The Four Mystics & the Northwest to La Conner, including painter and taking road trips across the country to School of Modern Art sculptor Clayton James and Barbara paint. Although Interstate 5 did not yet The “Big Four” or the Four Mystics Straker James in the 50s. Mexicanexist, the pair followed the road north of first met in the bustling 1930s Seattle art American farm worker and painter Jesus Seattle, eventually meandering through scene. They would eventually become Guillén and best-selling novelist Tom downtown La Conner. known as the founders of the Northwest Robbins (Another Roadside Attraction) Graves and Anderson rented primiSchool of modern art. followed in the early 60s. Out-of-town tive houses and cabins in La Conner
f you’re a fan of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, you might have passed through charming La Conner, WA. At first glance, you might think it’s little more than a tourist stop. But that’s where you’d be very, very wrong.
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Painter Mark Tobey was a faculty member at Seattle’s Cornish School of the Arts. His friend and fellow painter Kenneth Callahan was curator of paintings at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) for 16 years. Morris Graves—a student of Tobey’s—won SAM’s top prize at the age of 23, helping him later sell 45 paintings at New York’s Museum of
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walk first constructed by the Army Corps from Seattle to attend Skagit Valley artists connected with local artists of Engineers. Community College. While hiking near like Richard Gilkey, and some settled The boardwalks were frequently the mouth of the North Fork Skagit nearby, including Guemes Island’s Leo flooded and wiped out by the Skagit, and River with a local, Krafft discovered the Osborne, Philip McCracken and Max most cabins were on stilts. Everything former gill netter’s shacks of Fishtown, Benjamin. had to be packed in and out. Jewelry designer, craftsAlthough damp and odiferman and faculty member of ous, Krafft embraced the rusthe University of Washington tic lifestyle, paying just $1 per School of Art, Ruth month to rent his Fishtown Penington, started Fidalgo cabin in 1968. Summer School of the Allied Arts or, as it was also known, The self-proclaimed Penington Art School in ‘Mayor of Fishtown’ worked downtown La Conner in on improvements and at1954, attracting many arttracted other artists, poets ists, art students and teachers and scholars to visit and stay to the area for over a decade. over the next eight years. Art Richard Gilkey, Western View, 1977; Oil on canvas; 49.25 in. x 85 in. Whatcom Many stayed or returned for Jorgensen, poet Robert Sund, Museum collection. On exhibit now at the Lightcatcher building the quiet beauty of the Skagit Hans Nelson, calligrapher River, the wildlife and the affordable about four miles from La Conner. Used Stephen Herold and others were followed housing. only seasonally by hunters and fisherby Ralph Aeschliman, Paul Hansen and men, the cabins had no running water or many more throughout the 70s. The Birth of Fishtown electricity and could only be accessed by Art & Life in Fishtown boat or by trespassing on the property of In the late 1960s, young painter multiple owners via a dilapidated boardand sculptor Charles Krafft moved La Conner’s Bo Miller was among
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those invited to Fishtown by Krafft. “Fishtown for me was a window on a world that could be peaceful, creative and spiritual,” remembers Miller. “I feel fortunate to have spent most of the 70s at Fishtown in a pastoral metaphysical bliss that was/is the Skagit Valley.” There he wrote poetry, made prints, pen and ink drawings and carved sculptures and wooden boxes. Fishtown and the Skagit delta galvanized a new generation of artists and they, in turn, inspired each other. “Fishtown was a prolonged experiment in the style of deliberate simplicity celebrated by Thoreau and inspired by the example of two legendary Northwest Zen Buddhists, Morris Graves and Gary Snyder,” said Krafft in his unpublished book, A State of Mind, Not a Place (Dec. 2001). From 1968 to 1980 Fishtown artists produced countless works infused with the peaceful natural environment, breathtaking (mystic) light and shadows of influence from the artists who came before them. Local fishermen and farmers collected their pieces as did tourists, patrons in Seattle and eventually collectors from around the world. “Back then you could support yourself living on the river and selling your art…and helping yourself to the farmer’s fields occasionally,” remembers Miller. “They were very resourceful people,” adds painter Maggie Wilder who lived in her own cabin in the Fishtown area from 1995 to 2018. “There were opportunities to live off the grid or
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very, very simply. Up through the 80s, La Conner was the affordable housing hub of Skagit County. I moved out there thinking I’d be there for five months and I just kinda forgot to move,” remembers Wilder. She walked 40 minutes each way, using a rope to climb a steep rock, to access her cabin. “I loved the solitude, being out on the river. I made myself a promise that in exchange for all the inconvenience of walking in and out, I was going to stop hurrying in my life. It kinda worked.”
Fishtown’s Demise “Before white men came, before the farmers came, the Skagit estuary was the Safeway, the Costco for the Swinomish Tribe. It held all the food they needed,” notes Miller. “So there was contention between the farmers and the Tribe about who owned the land and decided what happened to it.” Dikes, a jetty, logging and channelization have significantly altered the natural flow and appearance of the Skagit estuary over the past five de-
The art of nature
eARTh
Doug Banner
Avian Spirits Rendered in Wood By the time I was six years old, under the tutelage of my grandfather, I knew the names of every tree, bird, and animal in the forested hills behind our farm in Eastern Tennessee. My New England fisherman uncles gave me an entirely new understanding of the natural world on the vast North Atlantic. Moving to the magnificence of the Pacific Northwest impacted the influence nature has on every fiber of my creative spirit. I spend as many hours as I can observing animals in the wild, seeking to capture the spirits of my subjects. They hold wisdom in their eyes, an elusive knowledge that they share with me… if I look long enough.
Clockwise from above: Aruban Shoko, Great Horned, Red Tail, Wind Blown
cades. “It looks very different now than it did in the 70s,” adds Miller. “Every faction who have ever been in Fishtown—the Tribe, duck hunters, artists and hippies—they all have a vi-
sion for how it should be and everybody thinks they’re right—and they’re all very different,” adds Wilder. “There was a very painful episode [in 1988] where there was a clear cut
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with a swath right through the Fishtown woods,” remembers Wilder. “It was about what the land could produce and not about what the land meant to the people for many, many years.” Native American burial trees and clam middens were disturbed or destroyed along with the remains of the Fishtown shacks. The remaining boardwalks were taken out in 2015 by the adjacent property owner who tired of trespassers.
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Photo by Marie Duckworth
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Many of the Fishtown artists passed away or moved on to start new chapters of their careers. With them they’ve taken a piece of Fishtown and shared it with the world—through their art and as teachers and mentors of the next generation of artists. Throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond—if you’re looking—you’ll likely encounter the glorious legacy that has followed. Many art and history exhibitions of Mystic and Fishtown artists (and those they’ve influenced) have occurred over the proceeding decades including several at the Museum of Northwest Art (MoNA), located in La Conner. Wilder is currently writing a memoir of her time spent in the Skagit Valley art scene. Seattle filmmaker Pat Ford has been working on a documentary, 40 Years in Fishtown, for several years. The recently published book, The Barn Shows, by Skagit artist Lavone Newell-Reim and photographer Cathy Stevens, shares photos, stories and historic information about an annual art show and birthday party in Newell-Reim’s 1910 Heritage barn near La Conner that occurred from 1987 to 2003. Mystic Guy Anderson was in regular attendance, as were Fishtown artists like Miller, Wilder and many, many Skagit and Pacific Northwest artists. You’ll find painter Becky Fletcher of Sedro Woolley and painter Tod Horton who was mentored by Clayton James. Theodora Jonsson’s paintings are full of ethereal water, mountain and glacial landscapes, likely inspired by her Skagit Valley mentors Bill Slater and John Simon. Wood worker and sculptor Peregrine O’Gormley’s work was mentored by Leo
John D’Onofrio
Discover the Benefits of Acupuncture Photo by Steve Woody
North Cascades Institute: April 24-26 Glacier Bay: May 19-26
Glacier Bay: July 18-25 San Juan Islands: September 24-27
SOL29-June D OUT5 Alaska Fjords w/Grizzly Bears of Admiralty Island: May
www.adventuresnw.com/photo-workshops 50
The heartbeat of Cascadia
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modern art—to explore the rich history and cultural legacy of Skagit Valley’s art scene. But Fishtown is long gone so you shouldn’t try to find it. “It’s a fragile ecosystem that has been damaged repeatedly by the projections of humans. It holds the grounds of strife and tragedy,” explains Wilder. “It is misunderstood as a singular or rare place to foster creativity, when the reality is that we all have the opportunity to slow down and pay attention to what’s in front of us, to create beauty. Each and every one of us can make a place special.” Artist Maggie Wilder Miller agrees. “People at on the Fishtown that time in the 70s were doing boardwalk Photo by Cathy Stevens this sort of thing all over the West Coast. Fishtown was one of many.” Osborne and Phil McCracken. All of the cabins and associated Plan your visit to La Conner—the boardwalks are gone. A caretaker lives birth place of the school of Northwest
in a sole remaining cabin that can be accessed only by trespassing on private property. Rather than breaking the law to get a taste of Fishtown’s glory, read the
Small Ship Cruises
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books, visit MoNA and the surrounding galleries, make a donation and join the documentary email list (pcford@criterionweb.com). It is there that you’ll connect with the priceless Fishtown legacy and the next generation of Northwest ANW modern art.
Further Reading Herold, Steve. 2008. Where the River Ends: The Art and Poetry of the Lower Skagit. Books A to Z. 108 pp. Swedberg, Claire and Rita Hupy. 2017. In the Valley of Mystic Light: An Oral History of the Skagit Valley Art Scene. Good Deed Rain. 298 pp. Technical Excellence & Integrity Since 1999
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The heartbeat of Cascadia
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Glacier Bay Story and photo by Christine Smith
I
t was late May when the M/V David B steamed towards Margerie Glacier at the end of Tarr Inlet in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. Unlike most who only briefly visit this glacier, we planned to spend the night. We anchored a mile from where Margerie’s icy terminus flows into the cloudy turquoise waters. It was time to launch the skiff and get to know Margerie up-close. We set out towards the glacier then stopped and drifted about a quarter mile from its face. Margerie was quiet. We sat expectantly in the skiff waiting for the glacier to calf. My mind drifted as I scanned the ice-scarred rocks along the glacier’s edge. The scarring told a story of where the ice had once been, not so long ago. I felt exceedingly small, studying
stories & the race|play|experience calendar online.
Field Trip Adventures beyond the PNW
the 250-foot-high blue-tinted ice spires that rose like pickets along the face of the glacier. Each spire would eventually fall ... it was only a matter of time. Suddenly, a spire let loose, and a thunderous avalanche of ice tumbled into the sea. We cheered as low waves rolled towards us, churning with floating ice. The swell rolled on, out into the Inlet. Late that night I awoke for my 3 a.m. watch. As I tiptoed around the David B in the soft purple of the northern twilight, black-legged kittiwakes clustered on small ice floes that floated silently past the boat. I went back to bed. The glacier thundered in the distance, and a few minutes later I was gently rocked back to sleep with the thought of new icebergs born into Tarr Inlet. ANW
The heartbeat of Cascadia
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Cascadia Gear: Essentials for your next Adventure Outdoor Research Transcendent Down Vest There’s just something about a puffy down vest. The venerable Transcendent Down Vest from OR is somewhat of a standard bearer when it comes to this layering essential. Warm? Oh yes. Light? 9.7 ounces. The Transcendent is stuffed with 650-fill responsiblysourced goose down and has a roomy fit to accommodate a couple of layers underneath it. With two hand pockets and a zippered chest pocket, this vest also works well as a top layer and does yeoman’s work in keeping your core warm. It’s a classic. More info: outdoorresearch.com
Arc’teryx Zeta SL Rain Pants Rain pants are a necessary evil. If all goes well, they spend most of the time in your pack and thus light weight is essential. But when the heavens open up (and trust me, they will), you’ll be most concerned with their fortitude. The Arc’teryx Zeta SL Rain Pants deliver on both counts. They’re simple and light and capable of keeping you dry in deluges of biblical proportions. The Gore-Tex Paclite ® Plus fabric is super breathable and they weigh in at only 8.6 ounces (Arc’teryx’s lightest rain pants). The ¾-length side zips make donning them a snap when the tempest comes calling. More info: arcteryx.com
Gear Spotlight: Comfort on the Run by Chris Gerston
Staying in shape doesn’t get easier with age. Now that I’m about to turn 50, I wish someone had told me to learn some maintenance skills in my 30s. Not that I would have listened, but maybe it wouldn’t have come as such a surprise in my 40s. My go-to conditioner has always been running, but four surgeries later, running became the “maybe I shouldn’t do that” activity. But lo and behold, I had a trip to train for and running became my necessary evil. Turns out, the thing I was missing was the right running shoe. Some of you may have read Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall, about the benefits of barefoot running. Well for me, it wasn’t barefoot running, but running in shoes with “zero drop” that was the game changer. And I didn’t just run in any shoes with no difference in height between the toe and heel, but in the Altra Olympus 3.5 runners, which have 33mm of rubber and cushion beneath my feet. This shoe allows me to get the midfoot strike that barefoot running promotes, but with enough forgiveness that my knees don’t mind the pounding. And I have to say, after a couple of months of running, everything else started to feel easier again—from mountain biking to ski touring. I never realized how much I enjoyed running, and now I’m also enjoying learning maintenance skills. Chris Gerston owns Backcountry Essentials, an outdoor specialty shop located at 214 W. Holly in Bellingham, WA. Check out more of Chris’ gear reviews at AdventuresNW.com Sponsored review
Guest Review: Gary Malick
Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Z Trekking Poles
The Black Diamond ® Alpine Carbon Z trekking poles are a great set of lightweight, fixed-length collapsible hiking poles. I have a set of the 120 cm poles (I am 6’1”) they fold down to a 16” long package that fits nicely into a day pack. These poles are maintainable, with replaceable hand straps, interchangeable tips (Carbide Tech tips to bite on ice and other hard surfaces and soft rubber tech tips with excellent grip). The set comes with two sets of baskets—2 ¼ inch trekking bale (basket) and 3 ¾ inch powder baskets. The quick deployment locking mechanism is a bit stiff right out of the box but wears in to an easy-to-use lock after a few uses. Overall a great set of light but durable poles. More info: .blackdiamondequipment.com
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RACE | PLAY | EXPERIENCE
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1 March - 2 May
MARCH >>> Sunday, 1 March SPECIAL Wild Whatcom Summer Adventures Registration is Now Open! –– Mar 1-May 31. Registration is open for our summer camps and backpacking trips. Grades 1-12. Financial assistance available. wildwhatcom.org/ summer-adventures
Saturday, 7 March CYCLE Mussels in the Kettles –– Kettles Trails System, 9:00 am – 2:00 pm. Non-Competive Mountain Bike and Poker Ride. whidbeyislandbicycleclub.org/ mussels-in-the-kettles RUN/WALK Chuckanut Casual –– 9:00 am – 12:00 pm. A community focused race preview of the inner 18 miles of the Chuckanut 50k trails. aspireadventurerunning.com/ chuckanut-casual-chuckanut50k-race-preview/
Saturday, 21 March CYCLE About Boating Safely Class –– Squalicum Yacht Club, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm. About Boating Safely class is a one day (8hr) class. We cover
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RACE I PLAY I EXPERIENCE CALENDAR basic boating safety issues including types of boats, boat handling, required safety items, basic rules of the road, basic boat operation, trip planning and emergencies. Passing this class qualifies one for the REQUIRED WA State Boaters Education Card. It is REQUIRED to operate any powered boat in the State of Washington (15 hp and over). bliaux.pnwsoft.com/#page=home
whitewater, sea kayaking, canoeing, fishing, SUP, and lifestyle. Food and refreshments will be available for purchase, including local beer and cider. Purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win awesome gear and to show your support for Recreation Northwest, our non-profit beneficiary. moondancekayak.com/paddlingfilm-festival-bellingham-wa
Monday, 23 March RUN/WALK Girls on the Run Spring Season Kick-off –– Schools throughout Whatcom County, 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm. GOTR 10-week spring season begins! whatcomymca.org/ girls-run
APRIL >>> Friday, 3 April SPECIAL World Tour Paddling Film Festival –– Bellingham Technical College, 5:30 am – 9:30 pm. Local tour operator, Moondance Sea Kayak Adventures, is hosting the World Tour Paddling Film Festival in Bellingham, WA. The international adventure film tour presents the world’s best paddling films of the year:
Saturday, 18 April SPECIAL Magnuson Series–– Magnuson Park, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm. We offer a 5k, 10k, 15k and kids dash each month all year-round. Also check out our special events such as our obstacle dash, duathlon and Earth Day Half Marathon. Based in beautiful Magnuson Park Seattle you get views of Lake Washington and Mt. Rainier. This event supports Earth Runs a tree planting organization. magnusonseries.org/
Friday-Sunday, 24-26 April SPECIAL Adventures Northwest North Cascades Photography Workshop––North Cascades Institute, April 24, 4:00 pm – Apr 26, 12:00 pm. Take your photography to the next level at this workshop in North Cascades National Park. Join us for a weekend of shooting in the field and learning how to use Adobe Lightroom software to bring out the best in your images. This workshop is suitable for students who have a basic familiarity with their camera’s settings. No previous Lightoom experience required (but helpful!). More info: ncascades.org/
MAY >>> Saturday, 2 May SPECIAL Recreation Northwest EXPO––Bellingham Cruise Terminal / Marine Park / Evil Bikes, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. The Recreation Northwest EXPO is your chance to connect with the active outdoor community. We’re moving to a new date,
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2 May (cont.) - 11 July Saturday, May 2nd, 2020 and expanding into more realms with paddle, bike and camping demos and more. Meet face to face and talk with Gear & Equipment Manufacturers, Retailers, Tour Guides, Coaches & Outfitters, Health & Fitness, Stewardship & Education groups, Events and Races, Public Lands officials and Recreation Media. recreationnorthwest.org/events/ expo/
Saturday, 9 May CYCLE Skagit Spring Classic-Bayview Elementary School, 7:00 am – 4:00 pm. Join us for the 30th edition of the Skagit Bicycle Club’s Spring Classic. Our fully supported bicycle ride through northern Skagit and southern Whatcom counties features splendid rural, forest, and marine views plus homemade cookies at our well-stocked rest stops. Four courses to choose from – 25,45, 62, and 100 miles. skagitbicycleclub.org/ content.aspx?sl=1520405382
Saturday-Monday, 9-11 May HIKE/CLIMB Mt. Baker Climb --May 9, 7:00 am – May 11, 7:00 pm. Every weekend! American Alpine Institute. In three days have fun learning basic climbing skills then make a summit ascent. No previous climbing experience is required. Every weekend, May through September. Come with a friend or family member or come on your own and meet others making their first climb. AAI is nationally accredited & 100% carbon neutral. 360-671-1505.. AlpineInstitute.com
Tuesday-Tuesday, 19-26 May
Saturday, 30 May
SPECIAL Glacier Bay Photography Workshop––May 19, 9:00 am – May 25, 1:00 pm. Join Adventures Northwest for a spectacular week in Glacier Bay aboard the M/V David B. The David B goes places that are off-limits to the big ships, allowing us the chance to get up close and personal with one of America’s most awe-inspiring National Parks. Phenomenal scenery, whales, bears, and lots of stunning blue ice! In-depth workshop on digital shooting, editing and post-processing, private staterooms & gourmet meals. Limited to Six Passengers. adventuresnw. com/photo-workshops
SPECIAL WCPC’s Annual Walk & Run For Life––A Life Church & Cornwall Park, 8:30 am – 12:00 pm. The Walk – It’s a family-friendly, easy 2 miles, so all ages can participate! There will be games, face painting, bouncy houses, food and fun! 5K Fun Run – The 5K run is a combination of trails & pavement that begins & ends on the corner of A Life Church & Cornwall Park and travels throughout Cornwall Park. This is a timed event. ~Refreshments, festivities and awards at A Life Church following these events~ secure.ministrysync.com/ ministrysync/event/website/ home/?e=16352
Sunday, 24 May SPECIAL Ski to Sea––7:30 am – 7:00 pm. First run in 1973, the Ski to Sea is a multi-sport team relay from the Mt. Baker Ski Area to Bellingham Bay. The race is held annually on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend in Whatcom County, Washington. A Ski to Sea team consists of three – eight racers competing in seven different sports: Cross Country Ski, Downhill Ski/ Snowboard, Running, Road Bike, Canoe (2 paddlers), Cyclocross Bike, and Sea Kayak. skitosea.com
Friday-Sunday, 29-31 May SPECIAL Sucia Island WFR for Runners –– May 29, 2:00 pm – May 31, 3:30 pm. A 3 Day Wilderness First Aid Certification course on Sucia Island for runners. aspireadventurerunning.com/ sucia-island-wfa-course/
Visit AdventuresNW.com for complete listings of Outdoor events
WILDERNESS
Closed to Races, Open to Adventure
JUNE >>> Friday-Sunday, 5-7 June RUN/WALK Sucia Island Beach Camp and Trail Run–– Jun 5, 2:00 pm – Jun 7, 3:30 pm. Sucia is known as the jewel of the San Juan Islands. It’s home to tide pools aplenty, remote beaches, abundant sea life, and sunsets that defy description. Complete the trip with delicious meals, a quiver of paddle boards and kayaks, and 5-15miles of stunning island running thrown in for good measure…it’s guaranteed to be incredible. aspireadventurerunning.com/ sucia-island/
Saturday, 6 June RUN/WALK Vashon Island Ultramarathon & Trail Run–– Matsuda Farm, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm. 50k and 10 Mild Trail Runs in the forests of rural Vashon Island. vashonultra.com/
RUN/WALK Girls on the Run 5k–– Lake Padden, 9:00 am – 11:00 am. Fun run open to the community. whatcomymca.org/girls-run-5k
Saturday, 13 June CYCLE Lake to Lake Bike Ride–– Robinswood Park, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm. Bring the whole family to this enjoyable, non-competitive ride benefiting the youth camp scholarship fund. Pre ride entry fee $15. Free kids ride in the park after at 12:15. Explore treasures of Bellevue on 9 or 22 mile loops. Low traffic roads, bike lanes, and a little gravel add up to a lot of fun. Post ride party! bellevuewa.gov/citygovernment/departments/parks/ programs/lake-to-lake-bike-ride
JULY >>> Saturday, 4 July WATER Martha Lake Open Water Swim–– Martha Lake, Lynnwood, WA, 8:00 am – 10:00 am. 4 distances up to 2 mile. MarthaLakeSwim.com
Saturday, 11 July TRIATHLON Lake Whatcom Triathlon–– Blodel Donovan Park, 7:00 am – 2:00 pm. Enjoy the picturesque course in this challenging but fun multisport weekend featuring Olympic and sprint-distance triathlons, aquabike, and kids splash ‘n dash! All ages and levels welcome, and registration includes participation in guided course previews and weekly training groups leading up to the main event. After the race, stick around for tamales, post-race party packed with prizes and awards. lakewhatcomtriathlon.com
AspireAdventureRunning.com
Sucia Ross Lake Rally Desolation Duo Lost Coast Yosemite Wonderland North Cascades Traverse Stehekin 56
RACE | PLAY | EXPERIENCE
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18 July - 27 September Saturday-Saturday, 18-25 July
Saturday, 8 August
SPECIAL Glacier Bay Photography Workshop II–– Jul 18, 9:00 am – Jul 25, 1:00 pm. Join Adventures Northwest for a spectacular week in Glacier Bay aboard the M/V David B. The David B goes places that are off-limits to the big ships, allowing us the chance to get up close and personal with one of America’s most awe-inspiring National Parks. Phenomenal scenery, whales, bears, and lots of stunning blue ice! In-depth workshop on digital shooting, editing and post-processing, private staterooms & gourmet meals. Limited to Six Passengers. adventuresnw. com/photo-workshops
TRIATHLON Lake Tye Triathlon–– Lake Tye Park, Monroe, WA, 8:00 am – 11:00 am. Sprint, Olymic and Youth. LakeTyeTri.com
AUGUST >>> Sunday, 2 August SPECIAL Community Food Co-op 50th Anniversary Block Party!–– Depot Market Square, 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm. Free, everyone welcome. Eat, drink, dance, play, celebrate! The Co-op is taking over Depot Market Square and Railroad Avenue to celebrate our 50th and you’re invited! Enjoy a fabulous family-friendly block party with food trucks, beer and wine garden, kids area and entertainment, giant birthday cake, and more surprises. Dance to live bands including Bellingham favorite Baby Cakes. Zero waste event. communityfood.coop
Visit AdventuresNW.com for complete listings of Outdoor events
TITLE SPONSOR
14th Annual
Sunday, 23 August CYCLE 2020 Chuckanut Classic–– Boundary Bay Brewery, 7:30 am – 5:00 pm. The Chuckanut Classic is the Mount Baker Bicycle Club’s signature ride. Come join us and ride one of the most scenic rides in Washington. With many routes offered you can pick your distance ranging from 25, 38, 62, or 100 miles. You can also join us for a family-friendly 10-mile jaunt with treats, entertainment, and other on-route stops and surprises for kids. The Chuckanut Classic is a benefit ride for Our TreeHouse. mtbakerbikeclub.clubexpress.com
September 27, 2020 FULL • HALF • 10K • 5K • RELAY
SEPTEMBER >>> Sunday, 27 September RUN/WALK Bellingham Bay Marathon––7:30 am – 3:00 pm. Featuring views of Bellingham Bay, San Juan Islands, and North Cascades mountains, we are often called the most beautiful marathon in the Pacific Northwest. Bellingham Bay Marathon offers a full marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K and full marathon relay (for teams of 2-5). One hundred percent of net proceeds benefit local youth nonprofits. Celebrate your race at a fantastic finish line festival with live music and beer garden. Come “Run the Bay!” bellinghambaymarathon.org
ANW
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the
Next
Adventure
Princess Louisa Inlet photo by DANELLE CARNAHAN I’m enjoying a peaceful paddle along a glassy inlet, with blue sky overhead and delightfully warm late spring weather. Above me tower the mountains that crown Princess Louisa Inlet. Snow is melting from their heights and cascading on every side into waterfalls that reach the sea. A sea lion pops his head above the surface, spots me and vanishes back to the depths. I get it … I don’t want to share this tranquil spot either!
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The heartbeat of Cascadia
Should I follow my head, or my heart? For some of life’s questions, you’re not alone.
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ubs.com/fs by different laws and separate contracts. For more information on the distinctions between our brokerage and investment advisory services, please speak with your Financial Advisor or visit our website at ubs.com/workingwithus. ©UBS 2017. All rights reserved. UBS Financial Services Inc. is a subsidiary of UBS AG. Member FINRA/SIPC. D-UBS-83DBB382
