Mt. Baker - Easton Glacier Solo Backpack
I first visited the Easton Glacier in 2010, and in many ways, it was the place and trip that planted the seeds for the work I now do. I spent nine days living beside the glacier as a participant in a young women’s wilderness field science, leadership, and mountaineering program called Girls* on Ice (now part of the larger Inspiring Girls* Expeditions organization).
This program could not have come at a more pivotal time, as I exited high school and was a month away from starting college. I had an idea of what I wanted to study and what the next four years would hold. And that week beside the glacier was a landslide that careened into the river of my life and left a big pile of new ideas and uncertainties in its wake. It took a while for that river to find a new course, one that would lead me to study environmental education and ethics, to wander around the outdoor industry in search of ways to connect people and place, and eventually to the unique confluence of art, teaching, science communication, and storytelling that I now do.
Through all of this change, the Easton Glacier, and the three instructors of that nine day program, were keystones in my life journey. Each year for nearly ten years I returned to the mountain as a volunteer for the Girls* on Ice program, carrying in gear and helping with the first four days of the program. The three leaders of the program – a glaciologist, a pioneering female mountaineer, and a botanist – were three of the most influential mentors in my life. Every July they asked questions and heard about my life and held up an invaluable mirror to help me see how I’d grown and changed. They asked me challenging questions about what I was studying and why, and helped me navigate the odd years after college filled with uncertainty about my path forward.
And, like these three women, the Easton glacier was also there, changing each year as the snowline crept upward and the glacier melted. Subtly at first, and then faster and faster it raced up the mountain. And yet each time I rounded the corner to see it’s massive white and blue shape rolling across bedrock, I felt the same awe I did as a teenager all those years ago. The mountain reminded me each time I saw it how I could love a place, and how art made on-site helped me for the first time really understand and feel connected to not only science but also the realities of climate change in my home mountains.
In the last sixteen years I only missed a couple summers of visiting the mountain. And each time I head out, I paint the landscape, bearing witness to the changes I see.
This September, after a month stuck at home waiting for the smoke to clear and two weeks stuck mostly in bed with a bad cold and then terrible sinus infection, I saw a promising weather and smoke forecast, and jumped on the chance to head out. On the morning of the trip’s beginning the new hiking buddy I’d found had to stay home with a sick pup, so I decided to go solo, and I’m so glad I did!
Thanks to the change in plans, I got a later start than usual, and got to the trailhead in the early afternoon. The hike in was shorter than I remember, something I was grateful for, as I could feel my body had lost some strength and endurance after a week spent mostly in bed feeling terrible. So, I took it a bit slower than normal and enjoyed the views and plodded up the hill at a consistent pace. Friends have joked that metronome would be a good trial name for me, since I love pacing and moving at a consistent speed – until the views open or flowers appear or any myriad interesting things pull my attention from the trail and invite photos and little moments to stop and observe. I am both very consistent in pace, and in my desire to take photos and make time to just notice things.
And the hike in is so wonderfully varied! You start out in subalpine meadows with large fir trees and open forest full of huckleberries, blueberries, and grasses. I stopped for a good five minutes to eat as many berries as possible before heading into the forest, where the smooth trail gives way to sandy soil, black volcanic rocks that make the trail surface a mess of shapes to navigate, and a consistent uphill grade. The Rocky Creek crossing was ridiculously easy this time of year, an easy step across a few rocks (unlike some of my hikes here in July, where in years past it’s been a raging torrent that was deeply challenging to cross).
Once you cross the creek, the trail gets down to business and heads up the hill in the now deeper forest. The shade was appreciated as I made my way up the switchbacks until reaching a trail junction I’ve hiked by many, many, times. This trip I headed left toward Park Butte and my planned camp, partway up the ridge toward the lookout tower.
More abundant blueberries slowed my pace to a crawl at times, but I didn’t care. That’s one of the joys of hiking alone- there is no one else to worry about! A few years ago I’d visited this area with my Dad and scouted out a few camps that were off the trail and well established (no meadow stomping), but were also below the crowded area closer to the lookout where everyone congregates, outside the camping prohibition zone in the tarn area, and above the horse camp. Aka, people would be nearby, but not right beside me, which is my preferred MO when alone.
After setting up camp, decommissioning an illegal campfire rock and ash pile, and relaxing for a while (and eating even MORE blueberries, I’ve never seen such prolific plants), I rousted myself off the ground and headed up to the lookout. I said hello to a few fellow hikers on the way up, and was amazed to see so many groups on a weeknight – five of them camped below the lookout, which had been claimed early in the day by a sixth group. I briefly took in the views from the lookout’s porch, and then scurried back down the trail to go paint!
A few years ago I’d painted in the amazing area off the trail that is filled with a few ponds (or tarns as some call them in the mountains, I’m still not clear on what, exactly, differentiates a pool, pond, or tarn, other than one sounds way cooler than the other two). This is a very fragile zone, and I’m grateful that camping is not allowed here, but I do wish there were more signs reminding folks of this, as there are now way trails into the zone that really need no camping signs, too. Thankfully there was no one set up in the meadows, and I had the place to myself for the evening. At first I was tempted to paint the mountain reflected in the pools of water, but the view felt overwhelming and too complicated for how tired I felt.
So, I wandered a bit farther until I found a rocky seat, and after a candy bar decided I did, in fact, feel up for filming a painting class. I once again raced the fading light, working on a smaller piece of paper and encouraged my paints to blend and move on the paper in as few layers as possible. As soon as the sun set I felt the dew start to accumulate on my hands, paper, pack, pants, and everything was suddenly damp, damp, damp. I got lucky, and had just one small section of the painting left to add, because that paint promptly refused to dry.
I really love the resulting painting. I has the feeling of this place in the evening- the bright golden green meadow, the way the last sunlight brought out the bright hues of rust and umber in the rocks, and how the mountain had shadows softened by the clouds on the horizon. I am so glad I stopped to paint here, and can’t wait to share the class with my Adventure Art Academy students.
On the way back to camp, I stopped to filter water, and my water filter bag decided that was the moment to fail spectacularly, and sprayed an entire liter of water across my legs. Soaking wet with the sun now gone and the temperature rapidly cooling, I cursed and laughed at my bad luck. It took me forever to filter some water while holding the broken bag together, but I eventually got enough for the night and added some purification tablets in case any dirty water got past my hands into the clean bottles (the water was a stagnant pond, and there was enough organic stuff and swimming things that it felt prudent to take the time to filter it slowly instead of just using the tablets alone).
I rolled back into camp just as it got dark, ate a late dinner with my headlamp illuminating all the moisture in the air in a grey dancing beam, and crawled into my sleeping bag with my still damp pants nestled in with me so they would dry overnight.
The next morning, I woke up to my tent covered in so much dew it was running off the green tent fly in droplets, looking like a celestial shower has turned on. It was much colder than forecast, in the mid-30s overnight, and I took my time getting out of the tent to make a hot breakfast of apple cider and oatmeal with fresh blueberries. While waiting for the sun to arrive in camp, I decided that I wanted to move to a higher campsite to stay in a spot I’d ben eying for years!
After loading up with 6 liters of water (creatively stored in ziplock bags) I headed up toward to the Railroad Grade moraine trail via a very faint old boothpath. The weather was perfect – some high clouds, sunshine, and vibrant meadows full of red blueberry bushes and grasses shifting from green to fall gold. While hiking up the very faint path I’d discovered a few years before with my Dad (it saves backtracking to the junction below and avoids the nastiest most drop-offy sections of the RR grade trail), I was glad I knew the route, because it was quite convoluted in a few places as I avoided a few gullies and blundered through the bushes for short bits. Somewhere in here I tore a large hole in my pant leg, and still have no idea when!
The way trail dumped me out on the moraine just below the campsite, and I was ecstatic to see it available. I excitedly got settled in, tucking my water bags between rocks so they wouldn’t leak, guying out every point on my tent knowing this area is always, always windy, and building a rock house around my poo baggies so ravens wouldn’t mess with it (in this area, you are required to carry out all poop, and it really isn’t nasty I promise. Just keep it with your or hide it under rocks so curious ravens looking for food don’t vindictively spread sh*t everywhere. Yes, I’ve seen this happen up on the snowfields, and yes it disgusting and hilarious and yes the person who made the mistake cleaned every bit up).
With my amazing camp all buttoned down, it was time to go paint again! I had no idea what I wanted to focus on, so I loaded up the pack with my supplies and headed up the trail, eyes open for inspiration. A short bit above camp I walked by tall stalks of Fireweed flowers. Some still had bright pink flowers atop the stalks, with just a few rows of blooms left, and others had already turned into poofy seed pods that glitter when they alight on the wind. Each plant seemed to wave cheerily in the cold breeze blowing off the glacier, and I sat beside them to admire the blooms. Once I lowered my perspective, I let out an audible whoop and pulled out my paints – I’d found my subject. The fireweed framed glacier peak, and the distant layers of dark blue mountains contrasted with the pink blooms and made them just glow in the filtered sunlight.
I decided to film this painting, as well, as a bonus lesson for the Adventure Art Academy class, and it was so fun! While working, I bumped a branch of the plant on the ground, launching the downy seeds into the air, and many of them snagged on the deckled edge of my watercolor paper. Others landed on my face, caught on my eyelashes, and tickled my nose, leading me to a fit of sneezing and laughing at the joyful absurdity of the moment.
Like the first painting I made, I am also very happy with this one!
Once the painting was done I hopped back to camp for snacks, a water refill, and to check for messages from the hiking buddy. She ended up hiking only partway in, and would hike up for dinner or link up on the hike out. With my afternoon now completely free, I reloaded water and headed back up to paint again.
This time, I focused on the Easton glacier, to paint as it appeared in this moment. This was, in some ways, the mission of my trip, but I almost didn’t sit down to paint. Before I start, it always feels so sad to look at the mountain and see how smaller the glacier looks, to notice new rocky promontories melted out of the ice and see huge chunks of bedrock newly exposed in the icefalls. The glacier ‘s terminus has receded around 750 meters (2,460 feet) since 1990, based on the data collected by Mauri Pelto each year. Sitting above the ice, this loss is felt so viscerally, as I look down on areas where I used to walk on ice, that are now a barren moonscape of brown and grey boulders.
But, as soon as I start to paint, I slip into the focused state of observing and witnessing, and the sadness shifts into devoted attention. I can still see the beauty of this place, something painting always helps me find even amidst grief about what we are losing. I think in some ways this is why I feel so compelled to come back here and paint each year. It feels urgent, important, and valuable to not only bear witness to change, but also to find that beauty amid loss each and every time. To finish a painting with a heart full of hope wrapped like the layers of paint on my page around that sadness.
The light is now fading as the sun lowers in the sky, and I shelter my painting from the cold wind so it will dry better. It’s time for dinner, and I realize I forgot to eat enough while working, and my stomach grumbles in protest. “We’ll be eating soon, I promise.” I say aloud, a habit of talking to myself that arose in the Sierras. On my way back to camp I spy two adorable marmots chilling on a rock together, something I've never seen before!!!
After a dinner of soupy ramen with vegetables and salty broth, I wander around camp making sure everything is set up and ready for a windy night. Just as I’m getting into the tent, having given up on a sunset display due to the sky-spanning clouds, I look up one last time to see slashes of bright pink across the glacier. “I GOT A SUNSET!” I shout into the rising wind as I grab the camera and run up the hill for a better view.
The little slips of alpenglow that snuck between the clouds are a brief flash of color, gone in 30 seconds. I whoop with joy, and then scurry to the other side of camp as the sun drops suddenly below the clouds to the west, sending unexpected pink into the sky and a band of deep red on the horizon above the San Juan Islands. Once the colors slip into greys and dusky blues, the wind picks up, and I hurry into the tent to get warm.
As expected, it was windy all night, and I was grateful for my experience guying out my tent for these conditions. All night I heard pine needles from the nearby firs blown onto the tent, staccato like rain mixed with gusts that I could hear coming in the lower alpine trees. I slept ok, but was quite excited for the dawn that arrived with clouds filling the valley below.
I originally planned to leave really early, but the low fog slowly broke, unveiling different parts of the landscape from one minute to the next. First the curved glaciers of the twin sisters suspended over clouds. The black buttes amid fluffy light pink haze. Mt. Baker with a cumulus cloud scuttling across the top.
It’s cold as I pack up, and when it’s time to go, I look at the mountain, and say goodbye and thank you to this place, already looking forward to visiting again next year.
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