TR Replies

Thanks, Pete.

below the chutes, we stuck close to the east side moraine since we didn't have an idea of how well filled in the lower glacier was and didn't bring any glacier gear.
Did see tracks further out from some folks who must've skied the glacier proper a day or two before.
It certainly looked filled in enough to ski right down the toe of the glacier.

Randonnee is so right about the usual conditions.  And even on a very rare day of OK snow and adequate coverage, it is still almost all (lengthy) tour and few turns!

It was great to meet you. Glad you had a good day- I admired your tracks. It was nice, sunshine and blue skies and long views.

That 1989 Ski Doo Tundra snowmoblie is a single cylinder, 250 cc displacement. It was light and had a long track for 1989, so I purchased it new (for $1948.00) just to go skiing. It is geared like a tractor and only does about 35 mph top speed. I have pulled huge sleds and have towed 5 skiers uphill on about 10 miles of road. It is certainly a relic when compared...

How is the snow conditions?  We plan to ski there tommorrow...

thanks!  

The usual 'the good, the bad, and the ugly'.  :)
The ugly being the cat track that I hope and trust was from the monthly Snotel check. (The Washington Snow Survey Office has a special permit to operate a cat on Road 4315.) It didn't make it to the site in any case, but left 1 foot deep tracks with now frozen solid vertical walls, plus frozen chunks of sno...

Assuming you mean 2006, that's some impressive coverage along side the highway. That's the way I remember it as a kid growing up in Roseburg. I got some big plans for spring/summer trips to the area this year. Might even be able to work in a brief visit with my folks down in Rosebutt. ;)

Great picture Larry -- spooky!

The snow in the backcountry near Mt. Baker has turned difficult to ski on most exposures. Difficult breakable crust except on shaded north exposures.  Up to at least 5400 feet. Today, it wasn't quite warm enough to soften it except on steep southern exposures.  If it got a little warmer then south slopes would be fine till late in the day.

Anything that was wind hammered late last week, which includes a lot of open south facing stuff at Snoq from what I could see in a small sample this weekend, would have a good chance of being corn, maybe intermixed with funky breakable crust (depending on your timing).

Impressive choice and trip to say the least!  Anyone think south slopes in the Snoq. area will be corn like by the weekend with this sun and night time cooling?

Was there really heavy rain on Tuesday night?  Telemetry shows a little bit of precip early Wednesday morning, but seems like it should have been snow above about 4000ft...

That's what I thought too, but it must have poured since the powder I was skiing in Tuesday afternoon had all turned to rock.

Was there really heavy rain on Tuesday night?  Telemetry shows a little bit of precip early Wednesday morning, but seems like it should have been snow above about 4000ft...

I am simply envious.  ...need to get up there...  

Nice pics Double_E -- I enjoyed watching Cosmo.  He must have been a riot to see coming down through the trees...

Couldn't leave out the wind noise!  That was half the fun.

Way to go, Toby!

Charles, no, that is a glide crack on the Chimney. It is always there early and late in the yesr.  This year, because of a few rain events, there are a lot of open and scarcely covered glide cracks in the Baker area that are usually covered with the snow depth we have.

A bit later three boarders and a skier did that line with a camera crew below.  The first boarder missed his entrance turn and slid into the crack.  Luckily he was able to catch onto the edge and ex...

Matt throwing up some smoke...

ah, i hate being a weekend warrior.

looks like this weekend will have some nice corn on herman if the weather stays constant.

Nice shot, and good job getting out in the brief weather window. Sounds like the snow was similar to what we found at Snoqualmie in higher open areas on Sunday (woods below were a fair bit nicer, but it was all good skiing except where completely wind-stripped to rain crust). Oh well, all that is changing now, time to hope for a nice storm sometime next week...

Nice report weekender -- good times indeed.  Skinning by braille was a fun mental exercise... ;D

Lindahl and Skoog, there's some names from the past! Way to get it done, boys.

There were cornices abounding wherever a ridge was sharp enough to grow one. We saw no spontaneous cornice activity, but you would probably see a bunch of this tomorrow, if the predicted warming materializes.

There had been a few major crowns, probably during or shortly after the Saturday wind. The biggest was on the Arm -- about a hundred feet across, but only about a foot deep.

The picture in my previous post was Table Mountain, at the South end of the Bagley Basin in Heather Me...

wow! I wish I was in the BC at Baker today! I remeber that climb up Table last year when we were walking on rock and clibing over bushes. Sick photo!

High, open west facing slopes were very hard, lower down glades were soft (even west facing), tree skiing was best, but later in the day snow was melting off the large old growth trees on south slopes, so could make tree skiing less pleasant tomorrow.  Maybe north and northeast slopes will remain powdery and dry.  

Great windless blue sky weather this afternoon, with good powder skiing on well chosen aspects.

For what it's worth, I talked to a DOT worker there today.  He told me our cars would be towed if we parked on the west side of the train tracks (gravel pit).
(We asked, because the lot of the east side of the tracks had not been plowed recently, and had a foot and half of snow in it.
I asked him about the east side of the tracks, and he said it was railroad property, and didn't know if it was legal to park there.

Amazing photos - those first few pow shots are incredible.

;D