CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 98 km one-way ride from near Bellingham, about 1 h 39 of riding. On the way it passes Glacier Washington and Heather Meadows. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The ride follows Mount Baker Highway for 34 km.
For about 6 km this is Mount Baker Highway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Bellingham is the last substantial city before the Canadian border, a place of eighty-five thousand people on a sheltered bay in the north-west corner of Washington state. It is a university town, with a lively cafe and brewing scene, a revived waterfront, and the kind of outdoorsy, independent character you find in many Pacific Northwest cities. The old Fairhaven district, a Victorian district with brick buildings and bookshops, is a nice place to wander, and the ferry terminal for Alaska sits at its edge.
Read the complete Bellingham write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bellingham is where the day begins. Next is Glacier Washington.
Glacier, Washington, is more a crossroads than a town: a handful of buildings, a general store, a ranger station and a bridge, in a damp green valley where the pavement turns decisively toward the mountains. It is the last place of any kind on the Mount Baker Highway, which is why riders pause here. After this the road climbs for about twenty kilometres through old forest to the foot of a volcano, and nothing along the way is going to sell you a sandwich.
Read the complete Glacier Washington write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Glacier Washington comes up about 59 km into the recorded legs. Next is Heather Meadows.
The Mount Baker Highway ends in a small paradise of lakes, ridges and tilted meadows, and Heather Meadows is the part where the road gives up and the walking begins. You are at about 1,300 metres, which does not sound high until you realise how much of the scene is made of snow: Mount Shuksan is a great jagged pyramid straight ahead, Mount Baker is a white whale to the side, and pocket lakes flash in the hollows between. Picture Lake, with Shuksan reflected in it on a still morning, is one of the most photographed views in the state.
Read the complete Heather Meadows write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Heather Meadows. Next is Artist Point.
The pavement ends at a car park on a ridge, and a short paved path leads to the best view in the North Cascades. Artist Point stands at around fifty-one hundred feet at the end of the Mount Baker Highway, and from the edge you look straight across a valley to Mount Shuksan, a jagged pyramid of dark rock and white ice, while the rounded, glaciated cone of Mount Baker sits close at hand to the west. Painters and photographers have been coming for a century, hence the name.
Read the complete Artist Point write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Artist Point closes the day.
Bellingham → Glacier Washington is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Glacier Washington → Heather Meadows is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Heather Meadows → Artist Point is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.