RHH's photos with the keyword: nooksack river

A favorite spot for eagle watching in northwest Washington in late winter and early spring is along the Mosquito Lake Road where it crosses the Nooksack River. The eagle gather there to feed on the carcasses of the salmon that have spawned and died.

This is the Nooksack River Valley from near Park Butte, my first destination. The Nooksack River flows generally westward from Mount Baker and empties into Puget Sound near Bellingham. The peaks on the left of the photo are Twin Sisters, with South Sister nearly obscured by clouds.

There have been an extraordinary number of eagles around this winter and right after the first of the year we went to the North Fork of the Nooksack River to do some eagle watching. The eagles there had been feeding on the dead salmon along the river. I had same problems getting my long lens to work on my camera and so did not get as many pictures as I had hoped and most of the eagle were roosting in the trees on the other side of the river, but I did get a few reasonably good shots.

Racehorse Falls is in the foothills of the North Cascades, not very far from where we live. It is named for the horse-head shaped opening to the left of the falls, not visible here. We were there in March with a friend who had not seen the falls before and due to an abundance of rain there was more water coming over the falls than I've ever seen. It is quite an adventure getting to the base of the falls when the water is high, though somewhat easier on the other side of the creek. Racehorse Creek is a tributary of the North Fork Nooksack River.

This is another shot from the drive up Mount Baker Highway to the ski resort with my parents. This was taken from a forest service road that would normally be impassable this time of the year, but because of our mild winter was negotiable with my all-wheel drive van. The river is the North Fork of the Nooksack and the mountain is Mount Shuksan, one of the dominant peaks of the North Cascades. We had a beautiful day for our drive and my parents were thrilled by the beautiful scenery. Neither of them (they are in their 80's) gets around very well anymore and this, according to them, was one of the highlights of their visit, though seeing a new great-granddaughter trumped even this. They have seen the North Cascades many times before, but not in the winter, so it was a pleasure to take them here.

Racehorse Falls is named for the outline of a horse's head that appears to the left of the falls in this photo. The falls are on Racehorse Creek not far from where the creek empties into the North Fork Nooksack River. The falls drop 139 feet in four cascades and at the base of this part of the falls there is a large pool. My wife and I were there this summer with Edward's girlfriend and another family friend and after crossing the creek and climbing up to the pool the three girls decided to go swimming (pictures of them swimming can be found at the link below). The days was very warm and we had climbed Slide Mountain earlier, so I am sure the water felt wonderful, but I decided to stay dry. Slide Mountain (located above the falls) and the falls themselves are one of our favorite places for a day's exploring. Do you see the horse's head?

Friday, April 8th, was a sunny and beautiful day, one of the few we've had this spring. I took the opportunity to do a little hiking along the Nooksack River at Horseshoe Bend. When finished hiking after several hours, I went a bit further up the Mount Baker Highway to the Hannegan Pass Road. The road was still impassable on account of snow, but I hiked up the road a ways to a place where I was able to get some pictures of Mount Shuksan. This is one of them. It will be a while before we are able to hike in this area or higher, since there is still a lot of snow in the North Cascades, as much as sixty feet on the North Cascades Highway. This picture, therefore, is a bit like dangling a carrot in front of donkey's nose - would like to be up there hiking, but there isn't much prospect of it in the near future, except at lower elevations. But then, even seeing the mountains at this distance is a treat. More pictures from my hike can be found here: ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2011/04/mount-baker... .