June 20, 2004, Mt Baker, C-D

I was planning on visiting my Dad (he lives N of Seattle on Camano Island) later Sunday, so I decided to ski Baker so I'd be somewhat nearby.  Skiing a little later and some car troubles had me over there later than I had planned, but he didn't mind.

We didn't really have a definate goal for the day, I just wanted to get some turns in, but when I got to the level of the camps at ~7,000' I realized my pace was much faster than when I went last year and that I should have time to make it up, so I started hatching a plan.  Because I was ahead of Scott, my partner for the day, I would climb to the top of the Roman Wall and start lapping it.  This gave me motivation to pass the 2 parties ahead of me and get up there to the bootpack on the wall, which was very well defined and very fast because of all the folks on the route this weekend.  I ended up lapping the Roman Wall 3 times, and the snow got funner each time.  We were able to ski much lower than I could last year, in fact we skied a bit too low and had to bushwhack up a bit to regain the route.  

Getting out was slow because my car started overheating.  I had gotten my oil changed on Saturday before driving up to the TH, and they put in some coolant but either didn't put the cap back on or put it on too loosely.  I hadn't checked under the hood at all, I just drove up there and only noticed it once it started boiling over (of course this kind of thing waits to happen until we're at the TH, not in town).  After a couple of failed iterations I was able to cover it with a combination of the washer fluid cap and duct tape.  I think things are allright, but I'm definately going to go talk to them today.

Still, a great day and I'm very thankful that the weather was so nice for the last part of my vacation.