Mt Dickerman Photos

The North Cascades in February. Usually this route is inaccessible until June. There is too much snow to manage, it’s prone to avalanches and requires too much plowing for winter maintenance, so they gate the road about 10 miles down, right before the perpetual gravel section that washes out every spring. But this year is an unusually low snow year (the East Coast has been greedy and is taking it all), and we’ve had warm temps and so many clear days (like at least 7 this winter), so while skiiers and snowshoers are grounded and slumped in their depression, we’re able to get on top of Mt Dickerman. The first half of the hike was littered with other exuberant hikers, but we were alone for the last four hours, and stayed to catch some golden light and returned to the lone car in a very dark parking lot.

The coolest thing about this little summit is that is gets you a decent view of Glacier Peak – Washington’s fourth-highest mountain (Rainier, Adams, Baker, Glacier – the four above 10k feet). But Glacier gets largely ignored by the greater hiking community because of its remoteness. You can’t see it until you are deep in the Cascades, on another peak. And that’s in summer time. Remember, the winter view of the mountains around Seattle usually looks like this…

 

because of our lovely omnipresent cloudcover. But here’s what happens when we get an off year (which happens about every 10 years). Click any photo to see it larger.

 

Glacier Peak from the summit of Mt Dickerman

Snowy trails near sunset

A view to the Olympic Mountains – that’s The Brothers in the center.

This is Monte Cristo just before sunset

And this is a panorama from about 10 images. The original is larger size on Flicker.