Backpacking the High Divide

My barometer for a good hike is when I see more bears than people. This summer, my quick overnight trip on the High Divide up by Mt. Baker met that bar. Despite soaring temperatures and a ferocious army of bugs, I was treated to solitude, beautiful views, some excellent Milky Way, and one “beary” best friend enjoying some edibles on a ridge not far from camp!

I seem to have a habit of picking extremely hot days to go hiking, and this year was no exception. Usually every spring, not long after I make my Milky Way planning calendar, I sit down with my family and figure out dates for overnight trips, day trips, and such. It’s complicated to plan around everyone’s schedule, especially with two little kids in the mix, and so oftentimes this advance planning is imperfect. It so happened that this year, one of the overnight trips I planned fell during a heat wave. Hiking in heat sucks, but a heatwave generally means clear skies, and given it was smack dab in the middle of Milky Way season, I decided to go for it.

The High Divide is a long ridge running east-west just north of SR-542 in the Mt. Baker area. We day-tripped here for the first time last year, and were really pleased with the area and what it had to offer. For my trip this year, I knew I wanted something with a clear south-facing view of Mt. Baker for Milky Way (and sunset/sunrise), and the High Divide fit the bill. The only problem was that I didn’t know precisely where I was going to go, given that I had I had only been once and only as far as Excelsior Peak. When in doubt, I like to opt for familiarity when it comes to trip planning (especially when I have a specific photo objective and limited time), so I decided to start my trip at the Damfino trailhead again, and head east on the High Divide until I found something that would work.

Besides the heat, the biggest challenge with this trip was water. I knew the High Divide would be dry, so I opted to do a water carry of almost 5 liters of water from the creek just below Excelsior Pass to the place where I ended up camping. It was hot, buggy, and type 2 fun, but I was in a great mood as I explored the ridge looking for a suitable place to camp and photograph. Roughly halfway to Welcome Pass, I found what I was looking for - an established campsite well off the trail and protected from any wind by a stand of trees. Oh, and it had views! After setting up camp, I hung out in the meadow just below camp watching the changing light of sunset. I was even able to spot some thunderheads developing in interior BC and in the Pasayten. And of course, I saw nobody since leaving Excelsior Pass - solitude at its finest!

After dinner, I decided to take a short walk from where I was sitting, just down the meadow to a view back towards Excelsior Pass. When I did so, I spotted a big, beautiful black bear grazing away on a nearby ridgeline! I estimate he was 300-400 yards away, and with the wind in my face, he had no idea I was there. I was able to enjoy watching him for over an hour as he fed up the ridge slowly until he was out of sight. My only regret was not having a lens longer than 200mm! I briefly considered trying to get closer to him, but decided against it, as I didn’t want to disturb him. Bears get most of their calories from foraging, and if they have to spend calories running away from a person, they just have to work that much harder to get ready for the winter.

I also took the time to explore a little more around camp as the light was fading, and spotted some interesting scenes like the suncupped snow below, along with some more distant scenes like the sun setting on the distant thunderstorm and the outline of Golden Ears. My best guess was that the thunderstorm I was looking at was located somewhere near Kamloops, almost 150 miles to the north!

After the sun was down, I turned my attention to the Milky Way. I knew that I wanted to get the Milky Way in position over Mt. Baker, and I knew that wouldn’t happen until around midnight, so I had time to rest and prepare my equipment. For an overnight trip like this, I decided not to bring my tracking mount. That was a tough call, but it weighs as much as a lens (or more in some cases), and I already had along two camera bodies, two lenses, and my heavy tripod, plus it was hot. Instead of tracking, I decided to focus on stacking and panoramas. Stacking and panos are great because they doesn’t require any special equipment, just a different techniques in the field. The quality from tracked images is definitely better, but I was happy with the tradeoff of quality for weight. Shameless plug: I teach all of these techniques in my popular Milky Way book!

I ended up getting a couple of images I liked, but I think my favorite was this panorama I shot below. The airglow that night was sublime, with really well-defined ridges that were very impressive. There was also enough ambient light from the stars, some haze, and nearby light pollution to give some definition to the landscape. All three of the images below were shot on the very versatile RF 15-35/2.8L. I like that with a single lens, you can get a variety of shots of essentially the same scene, but all with different character. I also thought it was interesting that at night I could see where other people were based on their headlamps. The nearest person to me was probably ~3 miles away near Welcome Pass, but I could also see a party over near Shuksan, and a party descending a ridgeline (maybe Larrabee?) far off towards the park. Other than that, solitude!

I decided that for the morning, I wanted to break camp before dawn, and shoot sunrise as I moved slowly down the ridge back towards Excelsior Pass. I reasoned that I had shot sunset from the meadow below camp and had good coverage there, and so shooting on the move would give me more variety in imagery. It only took me about 10-15 minutes to break down camp and I was off shooting. Sunrise over the spine of the North Cascades was beautiful, as was the meadow. Plus, I was treated to my bear friend again! He was back at it again on the same ridge, and although I was happy to see him, I also realized that the trail passed just above where he was. After nabbing a couple of shots, I started moving. A couple of loud “hey bear!”s did the trick of getting his attention and encouraging him to move on down the ridge.

As I moved down the ridge, the sun started coming up more and it got lighter. At one point, I could see the alpenglow starting on Mt. Baker, but I wasn’t in a great spot to be able to see it, so I took off in a sprint until I made it to a clear view. It’s times like that that reinforce my decision to carry two camera bodies with me in the backcountry. I don’t have to worry about changing lenses, and can quickly swap between wide and tele with minimal delay. That allowed me to get a ton of variety in just a few short minutes. If you have the means, I highly recommend shooting like this.

I also recommend shooting behind you too! Along my way down the ridge, I periodically turned around to see what was going on with Shuksan, and was eventually treated to the view below with the sun rays making their way through the haze in front of the mountain.

After a while, I eventually reached Excelsior Pass, and started descending back towards the Damfino trailhead. I wanted to try to beat the sun before it came up over the ridge and everything got hot again. It was about halfway back to the car when I ran into the first person I had seen since the day before!

All in all, it was an excellent, productive, and very fun trip into the mountains!