Home > Trip Reports > September 27, Ptarmigan Ridge

September 27, Ptarmigan Ridge

9/15/08
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
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Posted by AndyMartin on 9/28/08 11:24pm
Ah September - the cruellest month!
Leaving Artist Point at 11:30 in a dense fog I hiked the trail for a while with peek-a-boo views of Shuksan for encouragement. Found a nice patch in a SE facing gulley which yielded 430 feet of good turns. Lapped that 3 times and September was in the bag. Cruised the trail a little further to Camp Kiser, where another nice 600 feet run was found. This one actually had a little "new" snow smoothing out the suncups! Back at the car around 4:30 with the sun and scenery fully out. 3,200' total gain, with about 1,900' of turns gives a 60% JOM reading - I'll take it for September!
Andy,
Way to keep at it! next, the iffiest month?
Don

author=AndyMartin link=topic=10948.msg44835#msg44835 date=1222698249]
Ah September - the cruellest month!

That is usually the case, although October/06 was crueler than September/06. This September, at Ptarmigan Ridge, was actually my least cruel September. Hopefully, October will bring us a substantial amount of new snow..cetainly not going to happen in the next couple days,though.

In "The Wasteland", poet T.S. Eliot stated that "April is the cruelest month". 
Is it possible that he wasn't a year-round skier?  ::)

Eliot was a North Cascades avalanche forecaster.

Reply to this TR

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september-27-ptarmigan-ridge
AndyMartin
2008-09-29 06:24:09