Lake Ann (Mt Baker Wilderness) and Lower Curtis Glacier

We drove up almost to the end of the Mt Baker Highway to hike to Lake Ann in the Mt Baker Wilderness with a side trip to overlook the Lower Curtis Glacier on Mt Shuskan in North Cascades National Park. Overall our hike was 10 miles with 2,100 ft of gain/loss. On the drive up, we stopped at Picture Lake to get the classic photo of Mt Shuskan. Surprisingly, we were the only ones at Picture Lake this morning.

We had a brief glimpse of Mt Shuksan from near the trailhead, before descending 800 ft through the woods.

A short opening in the forest, gave us a glimpse of some mountain peaks to the north.

We were happy to see some wildflowers along the trail heading down through the forest.

Lots of flowers were there had recently been creeks from snow melt.

Some distant peaks and a field of wildflowers.

Wildflowers and rocky walls.

As we left the forest, we had a view of the top of Mt Shuksan as the sun appeared over a ridge.

Nice rocky ridge

After traveling through a flattish section, the trail begins to climb up through a talus field, as we got higher, we had nice views of Mt Baker to the west.

We crossed over several small creeks.

Lovely view of Mt Baker from above the talus field.

Our first view of Lake Ann.

We opted to continue on to the climbers trail to Mt Shuksan (for a short distance, about 0.75 mile). stream with monkeyflowers

View of Upper and Lower Curtis Glaciers as we continue up the trail.

We found some very sweet huckleberries along this trail.

Looking back along the trail, Mt Baker above, Lake Ann below.

To the south is Baker Lake, not long after this view, the trail enters North Cascades National Park.

There were some narrow sections of trail along this climbers route.

We found a nice spot in the talus field, to enjoy this view of Lower Curtis Glacier. Great spot to catch our breath, enjoy the views and have a snack!

On our return hike down to Lake Ann, we kept turning around to enjoy these views of Mt Shuksan, with the sun higher in the sky.

view of Mt Shuskan and the Curtis Glaciers from the ridge above Lake Ann

Some heather in the rocks as we hiked to the west side of Lake Ann

Pano view of Lake Ann and Mt Shuksan

View to the south end of Lake Ann 

We found a great spot on the west shore of Lake Ann to take a long break, eat our lunch and enjoy this gorgeous view!!!

As we hiked back down the trail, we saw clouds gathering over Mt Baker,

and over Mt Shuksan.

some of the wildflowers we saw along the trail today: