August 7, 2005, Ptarmigan Ridge (Mt. Baker)

A beautiful hike from Austin Pass with little elevation gain brought Steve, Tim, and me to the col on the west side of Coleman Pinnacle.  The flowers are probably past prime, but still were beautiful, the trail was pretty dry.  As Charles mentioned a few days ago, the snow is noticeably missing, sort of like late September, but we did find some short runs.   Our final run was 580', wow!

We started hiking back on the north side of the ridge, and midway along ascended about 500' to the low point of the ridge where the south side trail is just below.  As expected the trail was a lot easier than steep, sometimes loose, north side sidehilling.

All in all a beautiful eight hour hike carrying skis for four minutes of skiing.  August is in the bag, Tim thinks the Roman Wall will be the site for September turns.