Mount Baker National Forest was established as the Washington Forest Reserve on February 22, 1897 with. It became a national forest on March 4, 1907 and was renamed Mount Baker National Forest on January 21, 1924. Snoqualmie National Forest was established from land in Washington NF on 1 July 1908 with 961,120 acres. A part of Rainier National Forest was added on October 19, 1933. The two were administratively combined in 1974. The 1935 version of The Call of the Wild with Clark Gable, Loretta Young and Jack Oakie was filmed on location in Mount Baker National Forest because Twentieth Century Pictures felt it was remote enough to guarantee lack of interruption from skiers and other forest visitors. Paramount Pictures later also filmed The Barrier at Mount Baker Lodge.
Visitation
The Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest covers portions of Snohomish, Whatcom, Skagit, King, Pierce, and Kittitas counties. It has a total area of. The forest consists of four ranger districts. The following are listed geographically from north to south: the Mount Baker District has two ranger stations located in Glacier and Sedro-Woolley; the Darrington Ranger District has two ranger stations located in Darrington and Verlot; the Skykomish Ranger District has one ranger station located in Skykomish; and the Snoqualmie Ranger District has two ranger stations located in North Bend and Enumclaw. Together with the other central Puget Sound counties, 62% of the state's population lives within a drive of the forest. Another 1.5 million in the Vancouver metropolitan area are also within easy reach of the northern part of the forest. The large population factor, coupled with easy road access, makes the Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest the most visited national forest in the country.
Geography
Mountains
The Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest contains many scenic and historical points of interest. Mountain tops gradually rise from on the south end of the forest to in the north. Two tall volcanoes, Mount Baker and Glacier Peak, tower thousands of feet above the adjacent ridges.
Glaciers
The forest is home to more glaciers and snow fields than any other national forest outside Alaska., the largest glaciers—with surface areas greater than —are:
The number of glaciers in the forest has decreased from 295 in 1971 to fewer than 287 in 1998. This is a part of the global phenomenon of glacier retreat. Forest glaciers have lost between 20 and 40% of their volume between 1984 and 2006. This is due to continued warm conditions and negative mass balance. White Chuck Glacier is no longer on the list of large glaciers, above. It shrank from from 1958 to 2002. With the shrinking of the glaciers, summer glacial runoff has been reduced by 65 to 80%. This reduces streamflow and sediment and increases water temperature. Salmon and many other species are adversely affected by such changes.
Conservation
The north and east portions of the forest are exceptionally rugged and scenic. In 1968, part of the forest was transferred to the National Park Service to be within North Cascades National Park. A 1993 Forest Service study estimated that the extent of old growth in the forest was. In addition, Congressional action since 1964 has established the following wilderness areas, which comprise —almost half of the forest's area:
These pristine areas provide clean water, solitude, and permanent protection to old-growth forests across 42% of the Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest. Congress also established the Skagit Wild and Scenic River System in 1978. Its of rivers on the Skagit, Cascade, Sauk, and Suiattle rivers provide important wildlife habitat and recreation. The Skagit River System is home to one of the largest winter populations of bald eagles in the United States. The Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest encompasses much of the North Cascades ecoregion, a Level III North American Ecoregion. It includes the following level IV ecoregions:
