The Slow Return - Day 1 & 2: Mount Baker National Forest and Robinson Canyon State Park

No more great escape in the title.  That trip was officially over as soon as we left Alaska and reached Seattle via plane.

Jul 24, Tuesday

After Martha left to catch her plane back to Denver at the Sea-Tac airport, I arranged for a Lyft ride to Everett where our friends the Wolffs' live to retrieve Uma and Scarlett.

Got delayed a bit troubleshooting what turned out to be a broken connector for the backup camera, but with Jerry's help, it's all good now.

Headed, at Jerry's suggestion, north along I-5 to the Mount Baker Scenic Highway (State Highway 542) and took it all the way till it ends just past the Mt. Baker Ski Resort at a parking lot at Artists' Point.

I sought and found a boondocking spot in a large parking area across from a National Forest Service campground: Silver Fir Campground.  I checked with the camp host and there's a fee in the Silver Fir, but no fee when across the street!  FTW!

I set up camp in the one spot that had voice phone capability, but sadly no data, even with weboost showing 2 bars LTE!  But, there was 4G LTE just six miles away, closer to the ski resort so in case of an emergency I could get on the Internet.  I asked a co-worker to call my cell if something came up, explaining my situation and off I went riding.

I rode all the way to the end of WA 542 as I mentioned.  Beautifully forested with pine trees mostly.  The views of surrounding mountains and peaks were outstanding, they give some of the mountains in Colorado a run for the money in terms of beauty.

See what you think:

 Mount Shuksan according to Peakfinder app

 Mount Baker still covered in snow

 At the Artists Point Parking lot and end of 

WA Hwy 542

 Mt Shuksan again, it's the most imposing mountain

along this section of the road.

 Reflection of Mt Shuksan in a lake near the 

Mt Baker Ski Resort

 Views as Scarlett and I made our way

down from the top and back to the

campground.

Back at camp, with no cell data, it had to wait till today to send up the processed pictures of that night.

Discovered that the onboard fridge wasn't working right, the error code being blinked out by the power status light said "call the dealer".  Dang.  Enter Martha to the rescue since I had no internet access.  She sent me info links ( to be read later ) on how to do resets but we both agreed to take it to a dealer she found along the route for today.

Jul 25, Wednesday.

Woke up at 6:30 AM and broke camp, eager to get to the RV repair shop.

I got to JR RV Repair in Sedro-Woolley soon after calling them and the owner himself came out to check out the fridge.  The problem, it turned out, was that my parking the rig on the steep incline at Jerry's place had caused a safety mechanism to kick in.

The control board to to be "reset".  So he called in his tech and with a small piece of what looks like 12 gauge wire, the tech connected the slot below with the propane tubing, to ground the circuit board and cause a reset.  Note: this procedure is specific to a model N811 Norcold Fridge, YMMV.

Red arrow points to slot in connector that

provides grounding point for a suitable wire.

JR put everything back together once things were working again and didn't charge me anything!  I tried to pay for his time but he wouldn't hear of it!  He knew I was on a trip and wanted me to be able to continue!  Now that's service!

I tried the following BLM and State Parks with annotated results for a place to boondock.

Liberty Area: no cellular data signal and no spots readily visible

Elk Heights Sno-Park: Good data signal but no spots visible to me.

Third try was the charm, a wildlife area in Robinson Canyon.  The fee was $11.50 for dry camping via the Dept of Fish and Wildlife's 800 line.  You get a transaction number for the day and post it on your rear view mirror.

There was logging operations in the area apparently, even spotted two crews as they drove out at the end of their day at 3:45PM.  Otherwise, I think I had the place to myself.

After some work on Scarlett (muffler coming loose), fastening one of the RV curtains (it fell off its mounting screws again)...it was time for some riding after work.

There's this trail going up towards the logging areas, and handily, it takes one to the top of the hill in a nicely steep and twisty rock pile of a trail.  Made it to the top as the sun was getting ready to set but no real scenery up on top.

Made my way slowly down the hilly trail and got these two pics.  The sunset itself, with a clear blue sky, was nothing to write home about.

 I like the way the colors came out on this one.