Nov 5, 2005, - Baker

A small group of us were part of the assault on the MBSA and the close-in backcountry on Saturday.  We arrived around 9:30 to a half-full upper parking lot, a light breeze and decent visibility.  5 of us started off up the cat track towards Austin and the Blueberry gate and were soon joined by another 8 or so Bellingham folks -- it was quite the first-day party (which wisely dispersed once we arrived at our destination).  We were stopped part-way up the cat track by a patroller who told us about the slide and single burial just outside the backcountry gate.  He urged us to stay in-bounds, but when asked admitted that there had been no avy control work in the area yet - just cat tracks being put in as preparation for opening on Tuesday...

In the end we opted for some mellow terrain around Austin Pass, taking care to avoid areas that had likely received the wind deposit from the previous day's weather.  The snow was deep and light - but given our desire to avoid anything too steep it was almost too deep (a nice problem to have on Nov. 5).  No evidence of instability in our area.  We yo-yo'd a 500' slope 3 or 4 times and then followed the skin track set by the rest of the B'ham bunch up and out onto the cat track above Austin.  We ended our day with a run down a remarkably tracked out Pan Face...

A nice start to the season -- and it's a good thing the snow's still falling otherwise there would be some disappointed folks at Tuesday's opener when they discover how much activity the area has seen before the lifts even start running.   ;D