MOUNT BAKER WILDFLOWER HIKING TOUR – SCHREIBERS MEADOW IN JUNE
Skagit Guided Adventures offers small group hikes for the wildflower enthusiast that promise to Color Your Spirit!
Wildflowers make their colorful debut in mid-June as the snow begins to melt away. This time of year, Schreibers Meadow (a sub-alpine meadow) is painted in pink with pink mountain heather and bog laurel in full bloom. White mountain heather, marsh and stream violets add splashes of white, yellow and purple. The shy bell-shaped flowers of false azaleas and blueberries are quietly blooming in their shades of pink and orange. Salmonberries, willows, alders and sweet gale add to the potpourri. Many rosy spireas area preparing to bloom.
Along the gently flowing streams, one of my favorite flowers, the mitrewort, shows off its most inconspicuous, very unique and distinctive, minute green flowers along its long stalk. The sweet sicily is usually nearby adding tiny white sprinkles to the ground.
The Mount Baker Wildflower Hiking Tour continues up the forest switchbacks, a variety of wintergreens are getting ready to bloom. A bit further, rosy twisted stalks have gotten a head start with their small dark pink flowers dangling from the underside of (you guessed) its twisting leaves. And, if you have a trained eye, you will catch the northern twayblade (a forest orchid) also preparing for its debut.
After that last switchback, brace yourself for the view: Mt Baker and the North Cascades skyline! Snow still cover this part of the trail and much of the mountain. But if you are willing to stomp thru the remaining snowpack to the edge of the moraine, you will see partridge foot and penstemons blooming already.
The Mount Baker Wildflower Hiking Tour follows the Railroad Grade Trail, on the south side of Mount Baker. The trail traverses four different habitats: sub-alpine meadow, old creek bed, forest and alpine meadow. It entails walking mostly on a well maintained dirt, rooty and rocky trail. It includes a sturdy wooden bridge and boardwalk sections as well. This in-and-out trail is 6-8 mi round-trip and gains 1880-2200 ft, but it can easily accommodate the beginner hiker by staying in the meadow’s flat trail.
For more information and details click Book my Chasing Wildflowers in the North Cascades Adventure!
Skagit Guided Adventures offers small group Nature, Hiking & Farm Tours around Anacortes, Skagit Valley, Mount Baker, the North Cascades & San Juan Islands. Join one of these fun Adventures for a day. Or stay longer for a multi-day Adventure to “Re-Wild” Your Spirit! in NW Washington. Check out all Guided Adventures.