Artist Point and Table Mountain

Before autumn hit, we rounded up our summer with a nice afternoon trip up to Artist Point and Table Mountain. We've posted other photos of us "on Mount Baker" that were taken lower down, as this was the first time we'd been up to Baker when the road to Artist Point was cleared. Artist Point is the highest point accessible by car, but due to snow, it is only accessible for about 8 weeks a year. From the parking lot, there's a short little hike (like, seriously short, like 15-25 minutes up) up to the top of Table Mountain. We picked a beautiful day to go, and the views were astounding. Oh, how I love me some Cascades!


These first few were taken on our way up the trail to Table Mountain:






Atop Table Mountain, a clear view of Mount Baker, the Queen of the Cascades:

I'm also the Queen of the Cascades:

Can anyone help me out here? Is a pile of rocks stilled called a cairn when shaped like an arch? If so, then I can fairly say this "cairn" frames Mt. Shuksan:





Notice that the next two photos are the same. In the latter, we've identified Yellow Aster Butte, a hike we wrote about just a few blog posts prior to this one. It's really pretty amazing to be able to stand in one spot in the Cascades and identify another hike we did, miles and miles away.


See why it's called Table Mountain? A couple of giants could just sit down on either side of that there mountain and have themselves a mighty romantic picnic.


These next photos were taken along some little paths around Artist Point. The first is Mt. Shuksan. The second is Mt. Baker. The third is an awesome dog.










How could we not love living here? We have the country's best playground.

That being said... prepare for a lot of indoor posts. We won't see sunshine like that for about six months. THAT being said, we don't have any snow. How much do you have in the Midwest today? Is it true the Metrodome collapsed? Mike and Joan, have you rethought your retirement plans yet? I just have to ask.