Since I crashed my car, I thought I'd climb a mountain. What else could really make me feel better? So yesterday Sky, Hannah, Amar and I climbed to the summit of Mt. Baker with skis on our backs. Therapeutic to say the least.
We left Seattle around 4AM. A gorgeous woman was working a Starbucks that we found around 430, and she served us appx. 6 shots of espresso each. Am I dreaming?
The trailhead for Heliotrope Ridge (trail 677) is at 3,700', and we got here around 645AM. It has been snowing up high in some parts of the Cascades on and off all fall, with a couple more inches over the last couple days. We reached snowline surprisingly soon in the forest.
3.5 miles in tennies to reach the Coleman glacier at ~6,000', and then it was go time. Sky Doctor.
The weather was about perfect. "Partly to mostly cloudy" was forecast, but I'm sunburned. And thanks to recent rains, there was no haze and at one point we could see Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Yukon. Here's Sky on the Deming Glacier nearing the summit. Twin Sisters range across the valley, and the Puget Sound a bit farther back.
Summit shot. Baker Lake, 10K' below, Mt. Shuksan middle left.
Which means its time to ski. The top section was heinous ie. leg strengthening snow. Turns looked more like this: \/\/\/, than this: ~~~.
But once we got back on the Coleman, it was ankle deep pow pow pow. Amar and Hannah, country club livin'.
Hannah.
Campsites at the end of the glacier. This guided group sat through the snowstorm that we benefited from.
A-Team back at the tennis shoes. Great celebrations ensued.
A nice jog down the trail got us to the car without deploying headlamps, and a death-defying high speed decent of Glacier Creek Rd. courtesy of Amar got us rapidly to a pizza feast in Deming. ~7,078' climbed, ~4,778' skied, two 18'' pizzas inhaled.
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