In its element...

Yesterday Dave, Kristen and I had an epic day of powder skiing at Mt. Baker. I didn't carry the camera around with me because it was snowing and thus the views were pretty much non-existent, but I did get a nice photo of my Jeep in its element: Note that we even broke out the chains for the drive down from the mountain. Although not many people seemed to be using them, I think they were a wise decision as the roads were pretty bad. Better safe than sorry! A lack of foresight (and living in Seattle, where it really never snows and where I park inside) led us to the old-fashioned coat sleeve snow removal technique - thankfully there wasn't much ice on the windshield or we'd have been there all night...

We had a grand time. I really have no experience skiing powder so it was a day of experimentation for me. Kristen does a fair bit of backcountry skiing so she had some useful advice for me, but mostly I just made it up as I went along. There were a lot of ungroomed intermediate runs for us to deal with before moving on to the really tough stuff, which I should do. I'm in a "I'm a blue run skier" rut, when really I'm certainly competent enough to ski harder runs, I just lack the confidence to get on with it. Kristen and I did go down 1 (2?) of the black runs yesterday because there was so much snow that it was hard to get too much momentum going. It's not the steepness so much as the potential moguls that freak me out, to be honest. And it was fine, and fun, because the snow was nice and fluffy. They have SO much snow at Mt. Baker - the base is up to 140" (That's 11.5' - the most in the country.), with 20" more forecasted by Wednesday. Baker is interesting because they're not particularly interested in providing a pampered skiing experience. No high-speed lifts, lifties who may or may not notice you're there, etc. But, they have the best snow and the cheapest rates around, which makes it well-worth the drive for us, even though it's the furthest ski area from Seattle (within a reasonable drive). The remoteness and the "lack of amenities" result in fewer crowds, which is great, and I think it's part of their strategy to not upgrade the lifts and such in order to keep the mountain less commercial and more for the locals and purists (I'm not really either of those, but after having fun with the powder yesterday I could see how it could be addicting). Some of the closer ski areas get really crowded on weekends, but even on great powder days like yesterday the lift lines were really pretty short, especially in the afternoon when all the people who are only there for fresh tracks have gone home. Plus, when it's not cloudy, you get views like this:

Hope you all had a good weekend!