Hiking the Railroad Grade Trail

Today was a beautiful day in Seattle. Our plan for the day was to hike the Railroad grade trail, which falls in the Mt. Baker recreational area.  This is one of the most popular hikes in the area. It's almost 7 miles round trip and elevation gain is slightly more than 2000 feet. We had few tasks to finish before we start , so by the time we hit I-5 north it was already 10.30 a.m.

Everybody was out on the road already, but thankfully there was no major delay and at about 1 pm we reached the trailhead and as expected the parking lot was already full. We managed to get a spot and took out things we would require (basically a lot of water) during the hike and started at 1.15 p.m. The initial quarter mile is an easy walk through the Schreibers meadow.  After that the trail becomes rockier and at .9 mile you reach a bouldery creek. after crossing the creek on a wood log bridge, we entered the forest and the trail now becomes quite steep with lot of switchbacks.

Creek crossing

This part is tiring but once you are done with it , you reach the beautiful Morovitz meadow. With all the wild flowers and the view of mountains (Mt. Baker looks so near from there), I immediately forgot my struggle to climb  up to that point.

Morovitz Meadow with Mt Baker in the background

By the end of the meadow (2.3 miles), the trail forks. The left one goes to Park Butte and the right one to Railroad grade.  The Railroad Grade itself is actually a ridge or lateral moraine left by the Easton Glacier which leads up from the Morovitz meadows all the way to the Easton glacier itself.   The trail follows the crest of the moraine with steep dropoffs on both sides.  This trail is used by climbers to approach the Easton glacier route on Mt Baker.

Tarn near Mt Baker.   The green ridge rising to the left is the Railroad Grade.   The uniformity of its slope apparently gave it the name of Railroad Grade.

From the fork we climbed up the stone plank steps and passed a few pretty campsites. Till then it was of course pretty, but the best part comes after this.  The trail on the top of the moraine was extremely narrow (two persons can not pass each other on it, one has to wait at a safe postion ) and you could look a long way down to  roaring rocky creek running from the glacier.

Railroad Grade trail with Easton glacier below.

Looking forward at the trail.

The view was awesome in all directions with Mt Baker and Easton glacier on one side, and beautiful Morovitz meadows and Park Butte on the other side.

Purple Alpine Heather on the trail.

Along the moraine we hiked up about a mile a reached the high camps used by climbers. We found a nice campisite to take a break and had our lunch. From the campsite , you can not only see the Mt. Baker and the glacier but also distant North cascade peaks, including Glacier peak.

High Camp: Our turnaround point.

After lunch at around 4 p.m we started down. The return trip was quick and soon we were back in the Schreibers meadow. There were blueberry shrubs on both sides of the trail, which we had noticed while going up. This time we stopped to 'graze' on the wild blueberries. And many other hikers followed us!

Blueberries.

we were back at the car by 5:45 pm. It was overall a very beautiful hike, though a bit strenuous for me . It was a hot sunny day and we had to drink a lot of water. But now I know why it is ranked as one of the premier hikes of Washington.

Nandana