After spending most of August hiking in the Alps I barely made it back to Vancouver for my August turns. But I got them in. After getting settled in town on a beautiful weekend I went skiing in a cloudy Tuesday. Great timing. But it was great being outside anyways.
When I drove to Mt. Baker in the morning I had some heavy rain but it died down as soon as I reached the parking lot. At 20 to ten I started hiking up with my skies on the back. I love this trail. It winds through such a nice forest.
Hauling skies
It was the first time that I have been at Baker this season and I didn’t know that the bridge was gone. The avalanche that took it out is still filling the creek bed. Pretty impressive. You can see the bridge at the left side of the picture.
The Bridge is gone
As soon as I left the trees I hiked through nice alpine flower beds. Pretty nice.
And it even got somewhat clear….
Clearing up....
At the camp site I swapped my sneakers for skiing boots and boot packed up to the ridge where I had lunch with some hot tea! Pretty nice in these conditions.
A healty lunch!
And then it was time to take the skies off the pack and ski down.
Waiting to ski down...
I was considering skiing down the ski route to the parking lot but due to the poor visibility I could not see how bad the bush wacking would be. So I just skied out the way I came.
The descent route
I could even ski beyond the camp site. So much snow. But at one point I reached the end of the last snowfield and from there on it was ski hauling again.
After 5 hours I was back at the car; just in time because it already started raining again. While driving West the sky cleared up and in Vancouver I had blue sky. Just in time to enjoy a Blue Moon on the porch.
So this was ski season 2010/2011. It was a nice last trip. Heliotrope ridge always makes up for a good time. Thanks to all the people that skied with me the last year. There were so many nice trips with you. And of course I am looking forward to a great season 2011/2012.