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.

An Unforgettable Moonlit Swim In Washington

A few days ago one of my favorite friends from way back in high school got into our senior annuals. She thought what I wrote in her annual was amusing, due to me making a rather bizarre spelling error. I was mortified when I saw it.

I then dug out my ancient annual to see what the spell checker, I'll call Miss B, wrote in my annual.

Well, the only thing that caught my interest was a line that said "I won't forget Bay View in the moonlite!"

I had no memory of anything unforgettable about Bay View in the moonlight. So, I asked a mutual friend, also one of my favorites, if she could remember what Miss B was talking about. Well, this third party, who I will call Miss C, did remember what was memorable about Bay View in the moonlight.

Before I queried Miss C, I had replied to Miss B's message and asked her what the moonlight at Bay View, never to be forgotten memory was. She did not get back to me on that, but instead called Miss C and asked her if she remembered. Then Miss B got back to me, as appalled as I am, that neither of us remember Bay View in the moonlight. It is interesting that Miss C was both our go to sources to solve this puzzle. Apparently we both realize that Miss C's memory function has not deteriorated as much as ours.

Miss C has told us that the 3 of us were at Bay View on a moonlit night. To non-Washingtonians, let me explain, Bay View is a state park on Padilla Bay in Puget Sound. It is a shallow bay, so when the day is warm and the tide is low, the incoming water gets quite warm. Which it was the night of the memorable moonlight at Bay View that Miss B and me have totally forgotten.

So, with the water being enticing and us kids without proper swimwear, according to Miss C, we decided to go swimming in our underwear. Like Miss B said, wouldn't you think we'd remember this? Now, I was a boxer wearer at the time, so this would have been no big deal. But those girls getting down to their skivvies under the moonlight? If that happened, I'm thinking I would remember it.

I've suggested, to Miss C, that maybe she is remembering an incident at Baker Hot Springs. Although I don't clearly remember going there with Miss B & Miss C. Baker Hot Springs is a clothing optional type place, but at our tender, young ages, and being sweet, innocent kids, I don't think that would have been an option. But, I could see where hot springing in undies might have happened. I never had the full Baker Hot Springs experience til a year or two after high school.

Anyway, that's what's been perplexing and vexing me today. Being unable to remember a moonlit night at Bay View. Yet one more sign that I'm getting old and quickly losing cerebral function. Be kind to the elderly.

Below is a really short YouTube video I made last summer while up at Bay View to meet my grand little nephew for the first time. Apparently I did not put this video on this blog, but did put it on the Blue & Max Blog, those being the pair of cute little poodles you'll see in the video. You'll also get a good look at Padilla Bay and the location of the moonlit undie dip at Bay View.