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.