Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:24 am
The PNW had been having a drought. The drought broke a few days before we arrived and the nukage ensued. It kept snowing and snowing and to the tune of 13+8+8+3+12+18=62 inches over the 6 days I skied there. Each day got slightly colder. By the end of the trip we were skiing Montana blower more so than Cascade Concrete. We had a sweet house in Bellingham as close to the mountain as we could get and still house 12 people. Baker is pretty remote with scant lodging within an hour. We had a great group. One guy used to be on patrol at Sunday River, two brothers who raced in college one of whom coached in college and the other is on patrol at Squaw Valley. Our guide was a guy who has been on a number of our previous trips out west that relocated to Bellingham last year. He also skied in college and is on patrol at Baker. He showed us the many nooks and crannies of Baker and how to efficiently manage a powder day. Everyone at the house could shred, hard. We had planned to do a day trip to Whistler and or Stevens Pass, but decided not to. Baker was closer with tons of snow and cheap lifties so we bunkered down and skied everything the place had to offer minus the rather numerous inbounds 20-70 ft mandatory airs easily visible from the lifts. Baker is the real deal. 650 inches on average with serious inbounds terrain. Unfortunately, the easily accessible side-country off Mount Shuksan arm and elbow were absolute no-goes the whole time we were there unless you wanted to die. Faceshots were enjoyed by all and luckily we had some pretty avid photographers who supplemented my iphone 5s pics with some amazing images.
The pics speak for themselves.
Boom! Enter the White Room.
Make sure to come up for air.
Ski Patrol buddy testing the goods.
Did I mention it was DEEP?
Here you can see early afternoon free refills thanks to the nukage.
Yours truly.
I promise he was not just standing there. He was moving pretty fast.
Despite the nukage as seen in this pic visibility was good most of the week.
Dropping a 15 footer. You can’t see the take off or him riding away, or the fact that this was right under the lift but he did! It was that kind of a day.
The pics speak for themselves.
Boom! Enter the White Room.
Make sure to come up for air.
Ski Patrol buddy testing the goods.
Did I mention it was DEEP?
Here you can see early afternoon free refills thanks to the nukage.
Yours truly.
I promise he was not just standing there. He was moving pretty fast.
Despite the nukage as seen in this pic visibility was good most of the week.
Dropping a 15 footer. You can’t see the take off or him riding away, or the fact that this was right under the lift but he did! It was that kind of a day.