[olympichiker77]

I don't get over to the Cascades nearly as much as I would like, but last weekend I made it over by Baker and was not disappointed. I had a late start but it actually ended up working out quite nicely. I got to Glacier at 18:00, and drove the awful NF-37 up to a packed trailhead (took about 50 minutes). I've been on some bad roads, but the amount of potholes on this one is almost comical. The very first part of the Skyline Divide trail was quite a bit steeper than the rest, which made me question if the elevation gain on wta was accurate. Luckily the grade mellowed out, and the views up on the ridge made up for the steepness between the knolls.

Annoyingly steep section

Past the second knoll, I started seeing tents almost continuously. Everyone was out enjoying the prime alpenglow hour, watching Shuksan and the other mountains to the east turn pink while the western sky was lit on fire.

The view I was excited for!

More tent

Golden hour

Golden hour looking north

Lummi and other islands I think

Shuksan starting to glow

A pretty ideal spot

Spot the campers

The Fraser possibly?

Sunset beauty

Mt. Baker Highway is somewhere down there

After eating a Banh Mi on the go, I reached the very end of the Skyline Divide trail at about 21:30. The sun had just set and I really had no plan of where I wanted to camp. I kept passing amazing campsites but for some reason I just wanted to keep going. Well the first bit of Chowder Ridge is what stopped me for the night. I made it up a mini peak at about 6600' and found a semi-flat spot where I called it a night, about 21:50. I watched the twinkling lights of the lower mainland as stars gradually appeared, eventually taking over the whole sky. Even with the light pollution, the star show was pretty incredible. Exhausted, I slept through the sunrise and was up and moving by 06:00. The rest of Chowder Ridge was calling, so of course I had to continue on.

What lies ahead

Twin Sisters from camp

After partially taking down camp, I headed towards the first scramble section. There is a gully that avoids a large gendarme and approaches the ridgeline from the south. Once on the ridge, there is a wide plateau with some amazing areas to camp.

Zooming in on camp

Fun part of Chowder

Kulshan rises

My tent just keeps getting smaller

The Chowder Plateau

View of Baker from Chowder Plateau

The next section is where navigation got a little bit tricky. The path was not very clear, so I ended up sidehilling the south side of the ridge until the ridgeline looked okay. I repeated this a couple times until I could see that Hadley was the next bump in the ridge.

Very faint path

Side-hilling in the shade

Dense patch of Lupine

Looking back along Chowder

Lincoln Peak?

Hadley is finally the next bump in the ridge

It was around this point that I had the option to go up and over a gendarme or down and around. I did both and I don't recommend either. Down and around was very exposed with lots of scree, while going up and over there was shattered rock that made for really bad footing and handholds. The last section to the summit was probably the easiest, and it was there that I actually let myself take in the view. Hadley is a pretty amazing spot to sit and watch everything, even though it has low prominence. I looked back to the first knoll of Skyline and realized I was going to have a long, hot hike back to the car.

I love these weird out of place rocks

Final push to summit

View south from Hadley

View east from Hadley

View west from Hadley

Sea of fog

Is this Langley I'm looking at?

Glacier close-up

Hazy Shuksan

Hazy mountains

More hazy mountains

There's so many...

Another fun spot to go down and up

Section with actual trail

High up on Chowder

A friend

That one really dense patch of Lupine again

The dramatic Coleman Glacier

Back down the first gully to camp...

Made it back to camp at 10:00, then back to the car at 12:30. Passed around 50-60 people on my way out, mostly concentrated in the first 3 miles of trail. Not a single person past the end of Skyline Divide though.

The perfect trail

More perfect trail

Almost back to the beginning of the ridgeline

Snow: Essentially none even up to Hadley, just a couple tiny patches on the Skyline trail Bugs: Horseflies were pretty bad midday, but much less so on Chowder Ridge Flowers: Yes there's a decent amount. Paintbrush and Lupine mostly Skyline TH to start of Chowder Ridge: 5.5 miles, 2600 ft Chowder Ridge to Hadley: ~2 miles, 1300 ft

[some names]

Nice trip report and photos!

[Kenji]

Thanks for the TR I found it one of the best spot for shooting Milky Way over Baker. It seems FS33 to Cougar Divide is back open!

[ChrisSJI]

I biked FS33 last summer. It's open and passable but I wouldn't take a vehicle with less than moderate clearance. It's also quite brushy. Didn't have all the potholes of FS37 though. I'd go while you can. There was flagging at almost every culvert which made me wonder if the FS is considering decommissioning the road past the flow station.

[rbuzby]

Cool pics. Did you see any fossils up there? That used to be the sea floor, around 100 million years ago. That must be why it's called chowder ridge, because of bivalve fossils found up there. I found a belemnite fossil up there once, right on the trail.

[olderthanIusedtobe]

Looks great. I've been right up to the base of Chowder Ridge before from the Divide. Looks like I need to continue going further. Hadley might not be on the agenda but that plateau looks alluring. Thanks for the TR.

[Mountainpines]

Super!

[clerr]

This is really great photography! I love the vibrant colours

[yoko]

Is there any snow left along Skyline divide? Or any water source?

[olympichiker77]

There were definitely larger snowpatches pretty close to the trail, but I don't recall seeing any running water. If you go all the way to the end of the trail there is a little basin with some snowmelt pooled on top of more snow (lake underneath maybe?)

[Eric Hansen]

Water? As you head south on the Skyline trail there is a split in the trail before Chowder Ridge. A trail runs southeast from there, rounds a shoulder and reaches an east facing basin where a small but steady creek draining large snowfields runs. It was there in August several years ago. Only running water we saw, and a good mile at least from the junction. Alternatively, if there is a drip running from one of the snowfields setting a wide mouth dromedary, or ziplock baggie propped up by rocks, to catch the drip can do the trick. Ziplock baggies are also handy for scooping shallow, inch deep pools.