north cascades recommendations

I am a winter skier; summer climber, hiker, and scrambler. I am looking to try summer telemarking or other skiing for the first time, and I am looking for recommendations for good places to go. Ideally it should be a non-technical route, a summit would be nice, and minimal approach (before the snow starts). Any ideas, or should I get in my car and head down to Rainier to ski the Muir Snowfield?

Right now there's still plenty of options in the north Cascades. My last visit to the Alpental Basin was Sunday, but there was plenty of snow. A trip to Source Lake could lead up Chair Peak or over the Snow Lake Divide. Last I checked the road to Silver Peak was still covered in snow, but once that opens that could be another summit to try.

Based on my last trip up Hwy 20, I wouldn't think much of that is still real skiable, but I could be wrong.

I haven't been to Mt Baker in a very long time, but I'd guess there are lots of good peaks to ski down right now around Table Mountain.

A good place to look are the trip reports -- many are from Mt Rainier, but lots are from further north.

If it's your first time skinning, my suggestion would be Source Lake. You can go as far as you like, or reasonably turn around any time you get tired.

Certainly browse the trip reports that are most recent. However, get a copy of Burgdorfer, either new or at the library and you will find that there are lots of trips just about anywhere you might want to go. He does a pretty good job of noting the best seasons for approaching each trip, although you should note that you could probably add two or more weeks onto those approximations this year because of both the good snowpack from winter and the prolonged cool Spring that we have had.

Fact is there are lots of trips to be done off of just about any route through the Cascades right now, even highway 20. Oddly, the snowpack still has some settling to do, so beware of exposure to avalanches if you travel very high.

Alan

I heard that they have 8 foot snowbanks on the road they're plowing up to Artist Point from the Mt Baker Ski area, so I'm guessing that this area will have easy-access skiing for a tad longer. Might be a little bumpy by now, but I'm guessing that it's pretty darned consolidated (unlike some of the higher stuff, per BigSnow's comment). You can bag some easy high points in the area, with a few summits being possibly doable as mostly non-technical routes as well (though the pair of big-and-technical mountains in the area will still be well above you).

Mt. Herman at Baker ski area. Table mountain circumnavigation.

I would echo what BigSnow said: get the Burgdorfer, find some routes that you like, then come back here and do a search of the TRs. Since there are now 7-8 years of TRs it is likely there will be several for the area you are going to, especially for the kinds of routes you describe, as they are the most popular for obvious reasons. You'll have all the beta you need.

If you are thinking volcano (and you probably should, at least at some point), check out:

www.skimountaineer.com

Some dude put a lot of work into that one ;D.