Sitting In Texas & Thinking About Hiking Around Mount Baker & Losing My Clothes At Baker Hot Springs

I read the online version of my old hometown local newspaper every morning. It's called the Skagit Valley Herald. For reasons unknown to me the online version is called Go Skagit. There used to be an online version that looked exactly like the printed version. Maybe that still exists and I lost track of it.

Anyway, Go Skagit has a Hike of the Week feature. These tend to make me a bit homesick. This week's is about the Dock Butte Trail and the fact that snow is beginning to close the trails in the high country.

That is Dock Butte in the foreground of the picture, with Mount Baker hovering over it. Mount Baker is a volcano. One of 5 in Washington's Cascade Mountains. When Mount St. Helens started going into erupt mode Mount Baker also started acting up, so much so that access was closed to some areas of the Mount Baker National Forest. I remember you could not go to Baker Hots Springs til Mount Baker calmed down.

Baker Hot Springs is, or was, a clothing optional little oasis reached after a hike through an old growth forest of Douglas Fir trees. During the Reagan years someone prudish was put in charge of Mount Baker National Forest. In an effort to stop the fun at Baker Hot Springs the wooden box that turned the burbling spring into a pool was destroyed.

Soon a makeshift pool was made using rocks to hold in the hot water. But that did not work too well. I suspect by now Baker Hot Springs has been returned to its former glory, likely restored during the more libertine Clinton years. That man came from Hot Springs, after all.