John D’Onofrio resisted overtures to write a North Cascades hiking guide despite his vast expertise of the range. He saw no value in trying to duplicate the many worthwhile guides already published.
Thankfully, D’Onofrio relented. His newly released book, “Hiking Mt. Baker & the North Cascades” (Hancock House Publishers) is a visually stunning, artistically written ode to his beloved backyard.
Just in time for the summer outdoors season.
While Craig Romano’s North Cascades hiking guides from Mountaineer Books are wonderful, D’Onofrio has found a niche that adds to the genre.
This should not surprise anyone familiar with his work. D’Onofrio, 65, is well known as the publisher of Bellingham-based Adventures Northwest Magazine and for his classic photographs of the local landscape.
Combining writing and photography has long been his vehicle to encourage people to visit open spaces.
The 299-page book is as much a love story about our surroundings as it is an informative guide on where to go. D’Onofrio has limited the book to about 40 trails that personify one of the Lower 48’s most rugged and remote ranges.
He masterfully prepares readers for their outings with details about wildflowers, wildlife and topography. D’Onofrio inspires hikers to savor every step of a trail.
“To go beyond sightseeing or merely getting exercise,” he told me. “To connect to the land that is both psychological and spiritual. That’s what I do with the magazine. That’s what I do with my photography.”
D’Onofrio calls the approach the “full bandwidth” of the experience. It’s the way I like to hike for fear of passing by a beautiful, big tree or a plump huckleberry.
The author pointed to the 9.6-mile Skyline Divide near Glacier as an example of what he means. Skyline is known for its Sound of Music moments with colorful wildflowers carpeting the mountainside.
However, D’Onofrio urges hikers to continue to Chowder Ridge to witness “the icy vastness of the higher country.”
He added, “I’m trying to emphasize the journey more than the destination. The destination is important, but we miss a lot if we see ourselves just as peak baggers.”
D’Onofrio covers the speculator trails along the Mount Baker Highway, and includes gems as far east as Winthrop and Twisp on State Route 20. I’m glad to see the inclusion of Windy Pass, a short section of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail starting beyond Harts Pass.
His memories seep out of his writing
A lifetime of happy memories seeps out of his writing. He recalled embracing the outdoors on family camping vacations intended as low-budget holidays. While attending Rutgers in his home state of New Jersey, D’Onofrio spent two summers driving a total of 20,000 miles across the West and to Alaska.
The majestic peaks hooked him. In 1980, D’Onofrio and wife Susan loaded their Ford Econoline van the day after their last college class and drove to California. They were so eager to live among the mountains they skipped graduation ceremonies.
D’Onofrio marveled at the sharp granitic edges of the Sierra Nevada. Eventually, friends introduced him to the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Like for many of us, the scenery proved too intoxicating to forget.
He returned summer after summer until 1989 when he relocated from the Bay Area’s Santa Cruz Mountains to Bellingham.
D’Onofrio started a computer business, but after two decades hit a wall. D’Onofrio celebrated his 50th birthday realizing all he really wanted to do was spend time in the high country. He became a full-time writer and photographer while Susan D’Onofrio opened a yoga studio.
In 2012, John bought Adventures Northwest from Paul Haskins and Alaine Borgias. Within a year, he collaborated with Todd Warger on his first book, “Images of America: Mt. Baker.”
D’Onofrio also began leading photography workshops, including a month in Alaska each year conducting lessons aboard the Bellingham-based David B.
In 2018, he made the film “Cascadia Dreams,” which combines video, photography and a musical score by an Indigenous flute master.
Then came the full-color hiking guide that took five years to complete. The book showcases his artistic approach to landscape photography.
The North Cascades has scores of peaks that rise wickedly some 3,000 feet in the final horizontal mile. The steepness leads to an ever-changing alpine experience.
“In the North Cascades, things change hour by hour because of the weather and the drama of the topography,” D’Onofrio said.
While expansive views of far-off peaks are the reward for a big ascent, the photographer in D’Onofrio prefers evocative scenes that he calls the dance of the seven veils.
“Curtains of clouds will lift to reveal a new cliff face or peak,” he said. “The sunlight will come out and spotlight a place. It’s theatrical. It’s cinematic. If it were always a blue sky day, it wouldn’t be half as good.”
Sense of stewardship
The work also reflects his sense of stewardship. As his favorite trails face the stresses of overcrowding, D’Onofrio gently reminds readers to care for the places they tread. “If the trail is muddy don’t walk alongside it – walk in the mud. It builds character,” he writes.
I mentioned how overcrowding has reached an inflection point. D’Onofrio brushed aside the concern because he sees wilderness as salvation.
“It’s a remedy for the anxiety of modern life,” he said.
Point to D’Onofrio.
He described the sensation of seeing a perfectly sculpted compositional and geological design when sitting quietly for a few hours atop, say, Tomyhoi Peak. “There would be no way to improve it,” D’Onofrio said. “It is that way without any sort of agenda.”
Unlike, he added, our “manufactured landscapes” that are created for the sole purpose of commerce.
“But when you go into the mountains, that stuff reveals itself as the superficial distraction that it is,” he said. “In reality, it is a beautiful world and a beautiful life.”
Just like his book.
Elliott Almond's outdoor column appears monthly. Email: elliottalmond4@gmail.com.
