Curious Cat

CASCADIA #6: Mount Baker the Secret Keeper


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Have any deep, dark secrets you need to purge in a safe way?  Let me suggest you take a trip to the North Cascades, specifically Mount Baker. Find a clear patch of trail and shout your secrets into the crisp clear banks of this peak. She's been keeping secrets for centuries. From ghost towns to missing persons to hidden Bigfoot lairs, Mount Baker would rather erupt than reveal your secrets to a soul. But, like usual I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Mount Baker is also known as Koma Kulshan, or simply Kulshan. 

It is 10,781 feet high and an active glacier-covered andesitic stratovolcano. 

Mount Baker has the second-most thermally active crater in the Cascade Range after Mount St. Helens. 

The mountain lies about 30 miles due east of Bellingham, Washington. 

After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker has the heaviest glacier cover of the Cascade Range volcanoes.

It's volume of snow and ice is greater than that of all the other Cascade volcanoes (except Rainier) combined.

It is one of the snowiest places in the world, In fact, in 1999, Mount Baker Ski Area set the world record for recorded snowfall in a single season - which was a grand total of 1,140 inches!

Mount Baker is visible from  Southern Canada and as far south as Tacoma, Washington.

From Kiddle - indigenous peoples have known the mountain for thousands of years, but the first written record of the peak is from Spanish explorer as Koma Kulshan or Kulshan. This means "white sentinel" or "Puncture wound" (i.e. crater) 

The first governor of Washington Territory, Isaac I. Stevens, wrote about Mount Baker in 1853: "Mount Baker is one of the loftiest and most conspicuous peaks of the northern Cascade range. It is nearly as high as Mount Rainier, and like that mountain, its snow-covered pyramid has the form of a sugar-loaf. It is for this region a natural and important landmark.

 Show Sources and Materials:

David Paulides' YouTube Video on Washington and Florida

Facts about Mount Baker from Kiddle

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/the-mythical-fire-mountains-of-the-cascades/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Baker 

https://www.escapemonthly.com/top-5-things-to-see-in-mount-baker/

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Curious CatBy Jennifer Hotes