The East Baker Lake Trail

During the summer I had two adventures that were different for me.  The first was a backpacking trip with my (then) two-year old and three-year old.  The second was a bike-to-summit trip up to Ruth Mountain.

Both adventures, being quite different from my normal lets go climbing type trip, were quite memorable. My kids hiked the first 1.6 miles of the East Baker Lake Trail, and I made an ascent of a mountain completely by human power.

I've been thinking about both adventures since completing them.  I want to take my kids on a longer backpacking trip, and I want to complete more human powered adventures.  So I decided to combine these two interests. On a beautiful October Saturday, I decided that I would park my car at the North end of Baker lake, ride my bike to the south end on the west side and then hike back on the east side.  This would be approximately 15 miles on a bike and 15 miles on foot...

The idea was to check out the whole trail to see if perhaps next summer I might be able to backpack the whole thing with my - still quite young - children.  I wanted to check out the camps and make sure that there weren't too many drop-offs on the trail and make sure that the whole thing was kid friendly.

And it mostly is, except for a brushy section in the middle.

Here is a photo essay from my trip:

The bike tour in the morning started with a lot of fog and moisture.

A blurry self-portrait 

 Baker Lake is a reservoir. Here you can see the remnants of old trees from before

the creation of the reservoir.

 Mt. Blum above Baker Lake

 The lush forest on the south end of the trail.

Mt. Baker reflected on Baker Lake

Silver Creek

Another Beautiful Creek

A far more leafy trail on the north end of the trail.

The Baker River

A very cool suspension bridge over the Baker River 

on the north end of the East Baker Lake Trail.

--Jason D. Martin