TAY Mt. Baker backcountry skiing and snowboarding photos

Turns All Year skiing and snowboarding photos from the Mt. Baker backcountry
Mt. Baker Backcountry, Washington

The Mt. Baker lift area is renowned for its heavy snowfall and great snowboarding, but the Mt. Baker backcountry offers the off-piste snowslider far more varied choices in terrain and a vastly extended season. The term Mt. Baker backcountry is usually taken to mean the large area extending from Mt. Shuksan on the east to Mt. Baker on the west, including the connecting ridges of Shuksan Arm and Ptarmigan Ridge in between. Here, the choices of tours and terrain are almost limitless. A long tour, with turns, is to ski southwest from the Mt. Baker lift area along Ptarmigan Ridge to the Coleman Pinnacle, the Sholes Glacier, or even farther to the Rainbow Glacier right at the base of Mt. Baker. When fresh snow limits trips covering long distances, great backcountry skiing and snowboarding can be found on the slopes of Table Mountain, Mt. Herman, and Shuksan Arm. When winter is over and forest roads begin to melt out, the north and south sides of Mt. Baker itself become accessible, opening great backcountry skiing and snowboarding destinations, including the summit of Mt. Baker. On the south side, the Easton Glacier and Squak Glacier offer long backcountry runs, as do Heliotrope Ridge and the Coleman Glacier on the north side. High avalanche potential and active, crevassed glaciers, however, create significant objective hazards throughout the year. The photos in this gallery are from backcountry skiing and snowboarding trips to the Lake Ann - Shuksan Arm, Ptarmigan Ridge, Coleman Glacier, and Mt. Herman - Table Mountain areas of the Mt. Baker backcountry.