Artist Point

The Mount Baker Highway climbs some fifty-eight miles east from Bellingham, up the Nooksack past Glacier and Nooksack Falls, then switchbacks up to Heather Meadows and, for a few months of the year, on to its end at Artist Point, a parking lot on a ridge at 5,140 feet. Mount Baker, a glaciated volcano of nearly 10,800 feet, stands to the southwest; Mount Shuksan, all rock and hanging ice, stands to the east. On the way up, at Picture Lake below the ski lodge, Shuksan reflects in still water.

The road is open to the top only from about July into the fall, because this is one of the snowiest places on earth where snow is measured. In the winter of 1998–99 the Mount Baker Ski Area, just below the ridge, recorded 1,140 inches, ninety-five feet of snow in one season. It took the world record from Paradise on Mount Rainier, which had held it since 1972. Most winters the snow here buries the last stretch of road until well into summer.

From the lot, short trails lead out along Artist Ridge and onto Table Mountain, and the longer Chain Lakes loop drops through the meadows beneath it. In winter the ridge is a snowshoe or ski from the ski area's upper lot.