Rainbow Ridge, Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington, 8.10.2025

To be honest, I haven’t done much hiking this summer. First of all, I’m horribly out of shape and it’s been a real struggle to discipline myself to do much about it. In all fairness, I’ve also been pretty busy playing music but enough about excuses. I did manage to get in a hike up to Cascade Pass last month but so far that had been about it.

This morning Neighbor Greg and I headed out at 6:30AM for a hike we’ve had on our list for many years. The Mt Baker area is so dear to our hearts and we have done many hikes on all sides of this great mountain. Today’s choice was a trail that has seen very little if any maintenance for decades. It may even be considered an abandoned trail. The access road was in terrible shape and what is left of the trail was supposed to be difficult to follow. It always sounded a bit daunting but also pretty much guaranteed we could find solitude on a Sunday.

One recent trip report stated that the road had been recently improved, at least partway. We drove up the Baker Lake Road and just beyond the Boulder Creek bridge we turned off onto FS1130. We found the road to be in much better shape than we expected. The first part was indeed smooth as a baby’s bottom (well that might be an exaggeration). The upper portion of the road climbed a bit more steeply, had a few small ruts and encroaching brush but overall it wasn’t bad at all. I think a two wheel drive vehicle could make it just being cautious. After 9.4 miles we came to the parking area for Rainbow Ridge. There was only one other vehicle there.

The trail started up an old abandoned spur road for less than a quarter mile and then plunged into the forest. The first mile, while fairly easy to follow, was extremely rooty, rutted, rocky and steep. It was the kind of trail that would have made the Mountain Loop trails proud. We gained about eight hundred feet in the first mile until we finally topped out onto a ridge at about 4,500’. Now that we had reached the ridgeline, we were treated to monster views of mighty Mt. Shuksan just to the north across Swift Creek. We also had commanding views of many other peaks which would improve the further we went.

**Our first glimpse of Mt. Baker from the approach**

Now that we were on the ridge proper, the trail was well defined and easy to navigate. We basically followed the ridge in a southwesterly direction as it wound its way towards Mt. Baker. This involved humping it up a steep knoll, dropping down the other side and repeating this process several times. This ridge hike involved quite a bit of ups and downs but none of them were super long so just when our lungs and legs were asking for a raise we would top out on each hump.

We made it out about two and a half miles from the trailhead but with all the ups and downs it sure felt like a bit further than that. At the top of one knoll with a particularly nice view of Mt. Baker we called it. Going further would have involved another elevation loss followed by a pretty stiff climb to reach a ridge on Lava Divide. This would have put us looking down into the Park Creek drainage with many waterfalls plunging off of the Park Glacier. I’m sure it would have been an epic view but it just wasn’t in the cards on this day.

Quite happy with our spot, we had a little lunch and spent a bit of time taking photos. We could see dozens of peaks both near and far including the Border Peaks, Mt. Shuksan, the Northern Picket Range, Mt Despair, the peaks of the Noisy-Diobsud Wilderness, Glacier Peak, Dome Peak, Eldorado Peak and almost the entire length of Baker Lake way down below us. We only ran into three parties on the entire hike and from the time we attained the ridge until we were heading back down the gully we had the entire length of Rainbow Ridge all to ourselves. Overall it was about a four and a half mile hike with about fourteen hundred feet of elevation gain with all the ups and downs.

Rainbow Ridge, Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington, 8.10.2025

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