The Nooksack Cirque Trail

A few weeks ago, we read about what sounded like a different and exciting trail in Ken Wilcox’s Hiking Whatcom County (excellent guide book by the way). The trail was the Nooksack Cirque trail. Well, we went to go attempt it on a sunny, hot day. We knew we had to go when it was warm because the hike was going to require some wading. We got about half-way and had to turn back because of smoke from a forest fire. So we decided that we wanted to get revenge and actually see the views that I knew we were missing. So we went back again. Just to give you some perspective, Wilcox alludes to how it is a real technically difficult and tedious hike but we knew that the views would be great. And we weren’t really sure what a cirque was. Subsequently, we looked it up in a dictionary and the description in the definition does match what we saw. A cirque is a bowl-shaped, steep-walled mountain basin carved by glaciation, often containing a small, round lake.

You begin the hike by fording a river (the Nooksack) on a log. Then you walk about 4 easy miles through old growth forest. The tough and tedious part is when you walk up the river (best done late in the summer) by hopping boulders and knee-deep wading in a number of spots (this part is another solid and difficult 3 miles). We knew what we were getting into, but I really wanted to see the glacial cirque underneath Mt. Shuksan, my favorite mountain in the Mt. Baker Wilderness Area. Anyways, we started off the day by fording the stream. We did it the first time when our path was blocked by the smoke from forest fires with no incident, although Marcos got a little scared at the end of the log. This time Marcos fell off the log into the fast-moving icy stream. Well, we rescued him with some difficulty. But we still had to get across the log. He was just paralyzed with fear and probably thinking about the last skinny part of the log too much. So Kirsten and I were trying to coax him to cross and I eventually went to pick him up. Anyways, while we were doing this, one of us (probably Lu but it could have been me throwing our walking sticks up onto the bank so we could help Marcos) tripped over a nest of yellow-jackets. As a result, while we were helping Marcos cross the stream I noticed something biting my arm. Like a horsefly but much worse. Then the biting began all over. And there was a swarm of buzzing. We got Marcos across the stream by picking him up between the two of us and then we started running in pain. When all was done, we had about 20 to 30 bites, collectively. I got about 12 or so—a number on my head, a few on my arms and legs and a nasty one on my ear. The dogs got a number (particularly on their backsides so both spent a lot of time scratching their asses) and so did Kirsten. They hurt for a while but mainly the pain was psychological because we didn't know what was getting us because the yellow-jackets came out of nowhere. It also hurt to see Marcos and Lupe in so much pain. Lu was barking and whimpering and Marcos didn't know what hit him. Anyways, we were hurt but we continued down the trail because we didn't want to go back to that crossing. We got into the valley with the cirque, made it up 2.5 of the 3 miles of the boulder-hopping stream part, but got to a point where we couldn't go any further. I could have made it further wading (I am the Moose) but the swimming would have been too difficult for Marcos. Earlier, there were some points where I carried him across the river. The valley with the cirque was beautiful and I wanted to make it up to the glacier but I knew we weren't going to make it as a team. I also knew that we would be walking back in the dark if we tried to go further. All in all, it ended up being a 12-hour hike. So we turned back. And, we came to the conclusion that now we are only going to do hikes with marked trails. I don't know what to do about the yellow-jacket situation but we are just going to have to look carefully about where we step. There was nothing we could have done in this situation. When we returned to the original fording, we gave the nest a wide berth. Kirsten wanted to cross the same log because it was the easiest place to cross but I knew that Marcos had a fear of that log after 2 bad experiences so we gave a wide berth and crossed in a slightly more difficult spot, having to climb over a number of dead logs and pointy branches. All in all, a tough day. But I am proud of the buddies for hanging tough and hanging together.

These photos of Kirsten fording the river show a little bit of the peril as Marcos would call it.