"The clouds and fog were constantly shifting during the day and every now and then, the sun would peak out and light up the landscape to reveal the awesome beauty of the area. As I was exploring, I could barely see the mountain and then the wind shifted and the fog parted just long enough for me to capture this shot of Table Mountain."
The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest is one of the most visited forests in the country and is located east of Bellingham, Washington on the west side of the Cascades between the Canadian border and Mt. Rainier National Park. In the park you will find glacier-covered peaks, spectacular mountain meadows and old-growth forests.
The park was formed in 1897 by President Grover Cleveland who turned eight million acres of forest into reserves. In 1905 the forest reserves became part of the newly formed United States Forest Service. In 1908 the Washington reserve was divided into two sections. From Canada south to the Skagit River, the Washington National Forest was established; and from the Skagit River to the Green River the Snoqualmie National Forest. In 1924 the Washington National Forest was renamed the Mt. Baker National Forest. Throughout the years Congress shifted the boundaries and in 1973 the Mt. Baker and Snoqualmie National Forests were merged.
From Bellingham you take SR 542, also known as Mount Baker Highway east to the Mount Baker Ski Area. Along the way we stopped at Nooksack Falls located along the North Fork of the Nooksack River. The water flows through a narrow valley and drops 88 feet into a deep rocky, river canyon. The falls are viewable from the top of the falls near the cliffs edge. The falls were featured in the hunting scene of the movie The Deer Hunter.
After viewing the falls we continued east and headed up into the mountains. Unfortunately it was very foggy and we couldn’t see Mount Baker. After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker is the most heavily glaciated of the Cascade Range volcanoes; the volume of snow and ice on Mount Baker (0.43 cubic miles) is greater than that of all the other Cascades volcanoes (except Rainier) combined. It is also one of the snowiest places in the world; in 1999, Mount Baker Ski Area set the world record for recorded snowfall in a single season—1,140 inches (95 feet or about 30 meters).
At 10,781 feet (3,286 m), it is the third-highest mountain in Washington State and the fifth-highest in the Cascade Range. On clear days Mount Baker is visible from much of Greater Victoria and Vancouver, in Canada and, to the south, from Seattle and Tacoma in Washington.
While on a mission to survey the northwest coast of America, the British explorer George Vancouver recorded in his journal:
"About this time a very high conspicuous craggy mountain ... presented itself, towering above the clouds: as low down as they allowed it to be visible it was covered with snow; and south of it, was a long ridge of very rugged snowy mountains, much less elevated, which seemed to stretch to a considerable distance ... the high distant land formed, as already observed, like detached islands, amongst which the lofty mountain, discovered in the afternoon by the third lieutenant, and in compliment to him called by me Mount Baker, rose a very conspicuous object ... apparently at a very remote distance."
The official narrative of this voyage was published, including the first printed reference to the mountain and by the mid-1850s Mount Baker was a well-known feature on the horizon to the explorers and fur traders who traveled in the Puget Sound region.
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