Lake Ann: Escape from the Tent City

After our very scenic trip to Chain Lakes last year, we were easily tempted to do another trip to that area. We drove up the Mt. Baker road, parking just below Artist Point, at the Lake Ann trailhead. We had gotten a late start as usual (border delays didn’t help), so we weren’t fazed by the overfull parking lot and long line of cars parked up and down the road. Sure enough, while we had our lunch and geared up, a parking space opened up (“late bird gets the worm?!”).

This trail is a bit weird, because it starts out by going down. Pretty quickly the trees gave way, and the views opened up to Mt. Shuksan in front of us and the impressively glaciated Mt. Baker behind us. Kai wasn’t super energetic and kept asking to be carried on my shoulders, which I refused to do. We distracted him with games, gummy bears, and so on. Finally I carried him, but just for a couple of minutes – he’s getting heavy! It was a mild struggle, but he did hike 99% of the way by himself.

From the top of the ridge we descended a bit to Lake Ann, to find a whole crowd there. People were camped everywhere, around the lake, in clumps of tents all bunched together. Many with picnic chairs and beers in their hands. I’m writing this months later, so I’m trying to remember – was there even music playing?! Either way, it wasn’t inspiring to say the least, and reminded me a bit of photos of Everest Base camp.

It was already late in the evening, and I ran back and forth looking for a spot for our tent with no luck. My initial idea had been to hike a bit towards Mt. Shuksan, thinking that we’d avoid the crowds that way. We finally did that and found a perfect campsite. We had Mt. Shuksan right in front of us, and best of all – we had solitude. I like to say that just like when picking blackberries, it’s a good strategy to look where other people aren’t, as well as to put in a bit more effort than most. It was getting cold, so we put on all our clothes and enjoyed the sunset while having our dinner.

The next day we got a fairly early start, since we had a birthday party to get to in the city. It was cloudy, and cool, but gradually it warmed up and the clouds lifted. Usually the way down is shorter, but this time it seemed to be about the same, perhaps due to that downhill at the start. On the way, we stopped to enjoy apples and honey, for Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year.

We got back to our car and found a note on it about a road closure, due to a bike race. Funny, on the way up we had commented on how it would be a beautiful ride, if the road was closed to motorized traffic. Luckily we had arrived to the car after the race was done, and the road was open. It was smooth sailing back to Vancouver, and we even arrived in time for the kids to take a quick swing at the piñata.