Skyline Divide

In Explore October 2, 2011, #356.

On Friday the 23rd of September the weather was beautiful and my wife and I decided to take the rest of the afternoon off and do a little hiking. We drove up the Mount Baker Highway to the town of Glacier and just beyond took Dead Horse Road (don't ask me why it's named that) for 12 miles to the trailhead for Skyline Divide.

The trail is a very popular one but we saw few other people even though we were on the trail for about three hours. The hike to the ridge is about 2 miles and we spent a lot of time taking photos on the way up. The wild flowers were incredible because of the very late spring (the snow was just off this trail) and we took 2 1/2 hours going up.

The top of the ridge provided spectacular views of Mount Baker in the setting sun. We wanted to stay for the sunset, but did not want to come down in the dark and the mosquitoes were ferocious at the top, so we headed down and were back at the car in half an hour, by which time the sun was down and darkness was descending.

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