Driving to Mt Baker

It is something of a scandal that it was not until a week and a half ago that I had seen the mountains of the West Coast. I fell in love, and would like to go back. In an Airstream...with man and cat.

We made a day trip from Vancouver to Mt Baker, and found snow, lush grass, snowmelt streams, flowers, and fish. Small salmon, I say. Trout, says Vince. Feesh, says the cat, thinking about the Airstream.

The trees cathedralling the narrow road through the tiny hamlet of Glacier and up to the mountains made me think of (seemed to be humming it in fact), Angelo Badalamenti's theme music for Twin Peaks.

It is countryside fabled and ingrained in me through reading and through countless movies; absorbed Americana, first visited. I think my eyes were shining.

Below, Mt Baker.

And Mt Shuksan.

And a little cairn we made for Jay and Guy. They made one for us in the Kgalagadi. Stone prayers.

An alpine slope.

And a lake near Heather Meadows, characterized by another lake, fed by many rushing, icecold streams and endless carpets of spongy, emerald moss.

Vince on the path to the turquoise lake in the basin at Heather Meadows...

Clean, clean water. The sound of it everywhere.

The larger stream where we saw many fish.

Mt Shuksan in a photograph that I imagine has made many postcards. It's almost too kitschly perfect to publish. The kind of bad oil painting that hangs over dusty sofas.