Mt. Baker has been my favourite place overall for the last three years; proximity to my home area, beautiful landscape, great trails, and variety..............in all seasons. I had hiked to top of Table Mountain twice before; last year in September and earlier this year in July. With the new snow dumped on the slopes of Artist Point, Table Mountain, and around.. wanted to check out if we could still climb up the switchback trail leading up on and near its east facing slopes.

There were only a few clouds to start, which made for a beautiful day and sharing great photo ops with two good friends.

We parked on the skii area parking lot at the bottom, since the road up Artist Point had been closed. There we started the day with a hike on the trail on some spots of icy snow and partially bare ground; all the way past the interpretation center, and up the trail to ridge and reached the Artist Point parking lot. There was a few inches of slush on it and melting. From there we hiked up in the snow westward to Table Mountain and found access up was clear. The trail up to Table Mtn summit was mostly clear of snow; on top however there was some. 20 to 30 cm of soft melting new snow. We hiked along 2/3 of the plateau top and returned, we walked down the road all the way back down to the parking lot. Since my GPS shut down prematurely; my estimate is about 8 to 9 km return with net elevation gain of near 500 to 550 meters for a short day of five yours. Enjoy the pictures below:


Karl

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