The ski resorts opened up this Thanksgiving weekend and who are we to let that go by? Cover is thin but we've skied twice in the backcountry without doing damage to ourselves or our skis on rocks, exposed stumps and creeks. The base at Mt. Baker is already 5' deep but little fresh snow fell over the last couple days. Still, we needed some practice on the groomers before getting too serious about backcountry skiing. The groomers were fast and a little lumpy in some places. The skiing was fun for a few hours but we did tire of skiing the same runs over and over. We called it a day around 1:00 p.m. and went to one of our favorite watering holes.
Month: November 2012
Alas, there are no pictures from today's ski. The weather has been appropriately cold and rainy and the mountains promised snow. Randy and I accidently slept in but still got up to the ski area by 10:00. There's not enough snow coverage for the groomers to begin but enough for eager skiers to pick a route around rocks, logs, and shrubs.
We joined a line going up the Big Chief run. The run was skied out with a lot of crunchy crust under a nice fresh cover so we decided to continue up beyond the top of that lift. Soon we overtook a couple youngsters (okay, they were probably in their 20's at least) who were struggling with the steep skin track they were trying to set. Randy advised a gentler skin track and they kindly let him break in the rest of the track. The fellow in the lead had lost a skin on one of his skis so he was going nowhere fast. The other fellow just couldn't get his skis around on the sharp switch-back turns. I tried to show and tell a kick turn to get around those steep switch backs. Eventually he got it but by then we were quite a ways up toward the ridge.
The snow on top of the ridge was deep and fresh. The youngsters caught up to us while we were debating our route down and transitioning into downhill mode. We never saw them again so assume they found a route down.
We traversed the ridge in lovely, fresh powder although I was suspicious that every lump and bump in the snow was a hidden rock or log just waiting to grab my skis and knock me over. And some probably were but I managed to ski around them. The ski down from the ridge was really fun but then as we skied lower on the terrain the snow cover became thin, the rocks more obvious and there were a few open creeks.
It wasn't worth taking another lap so we skied out past the beginner chair but not before I took a flying leap over an open ditch and ended up in heap on the other side. The key part is that I landed on the other side. The ski down the beginner run was really fun with very few obstacles. I made some of my best turns there.
It continues to rain hard outside so I am hopeful the snow continues to pile in the mountains!
I like the way Steph organizes her blog posts. I would like to do something similar with this blog since the purpose of it has morphed over the years into trip reports (TRs). However, I do not have the know-how to accomplish that even though Typepad says personal webpages are completely customizable. It would require that I take the time to actually read the directions. Generally, I don't like to do that. So, this remains my format.
I do have a minor trips to report. On October 27, 2012 Randy and I skied from the upper parking lot at Heather Meadows (Mt. Baker Ski Area) to Artist Point. The ski area isn't open yet but there was enough snow to invite a bunch of folks to venture out
Slightly soggy parking lot
Skinning up to Artist Point in a white-out. Nothing new about this trip!
It's more fun than it looks!