John Guilford's Hikes

Dickerman Mtn. on 1989-09-24

Date: 1989-09-24

Location: Dickerman Mtn.

People: (including myself): Lynn, Jay Wardle

I know why this place is known for its blueberries (we got over 6 cups)! This trip took almost exactly 8 hours (with a significant portion of that applied to berry picking). The trail is pretty easy with a even slope to most of it. The first half is switchbacking up the side of the mountain. In general, the mountain has a shallow sloped south side, with a relatively straight drop off on the north. About half way up the side (which gives good views of Big 4 across the road all the way up), you break free from the trees and enter into the blue berry fields. These were bright red with lots of good (and small) berries. We did some grazing on the way up, though most of our picking was on the way down. You pretty much stay in and around the blue berry stuff all the way to the top. It was relatively crowded on top, but since the top is pretty rounded, there is a lot of room to spread out on. The trail continues beyond the top going off into the hills northeastward. I don't think the trail goes anywhere (i.e. I think you'd have to retrace your steps back over Dickerman). Lynn wanted to bush whack here way down below the north side and try to catch up with the Perry Creek trail (which follow Perry Creek down in the valley). Unfortunately, my knee was somewhat sore from the Three Fingers hike of the previous day, so I was in no mood to do any off trail stuff. I did a good portion of the trail with a stiff leg, which wasn't hard to do on a lot of it. Near the bottom of the blueberry fields, off the main trail towards the east is a pretty little pond. It looks like good (though, maybe buggy) camping on the north side. Over on the south side, we found a good collection of blue berries (probably because most hikers missed that area, they were more plentiful). The bugs, although not too bad, were worse here than anywhere else (where we didn't really see any bugs), and this caused us to move on after a bit of picking. 1.5 miles from the start, there is a "12 inch" log across the trail. This indicates the kind of people the NFS expects to use this trail when the label warnings such as this. (The log is actually closer to 16-20 inches). I thought is was humorous on top (especially after just completing Three Fingers) to listen to some of the peoples comments when they got to the top exclaiming how hard it was and how awesome it was to get to the top. This was another of those beautiful, sunny, warm fall days.

Pictures:

View of the east side of Three Fingers and the Squire Creek basin from the summit.

View of Mt. Baker from the summit.

Please send comments or corrections to john_guilford@keysight.com
Last updated on: Mon Jun 8 16:50:16 PDT 2015