December 12, 2004, Baker reports in - conditions
12/12/04
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
3072
5
We began to have our first doubts when one of the lifties said, "Surprised to see you guys here today! Yesteray was a blood bath - broken bones, concussions, hunks of meat left on ice chunks."
That sounded like fun, so we worked for a while on our Eastern Powder technique. The secret seems to be to hit the death cookies with more force than that with which they are attached to the boilerplate. Any less and you are down for a while.
We soon decided to tour around Table to see what was left of the snowpack after 3" of rain on Thursday. We found lots of places where Ulr had made furrows for planting the Spring corn harvest.
We even found a few found a few 1/2 deep deposit zones -- each the size of one turn.
The good news: the snowpack is still there. It did't run like a milkshake down into Bagley lake and leave bare rock behind. There were a couple gullies which were eroded to the ground level by the volume of water in the deluge, but few areas slid to the bone. Given a few inches of snow that hopefully starts wet enough to stick to the boilerplate, Baker will be ready to go.
That sounded like fun, so we worked for a while on our Eastern Powder technique. The secret seems to be to hit the death cookies with more force than that with which they are attached to the boilerplate. Any less and you are down for a while.
We soon decided to tour around Table to see what was left of the snowpack after 3" of rain on Thursday. We found lots of places where Ulr had made furrows for planting the Spring corn harvest.
We even found a few found a few 1/2 deep deposit zones -- each the size of one turn.
The good news: the snowpack is still there. It did't run like a milkshake down into Bagley lake and leave bare rock behind. There were a couple gullies which were eroded to the ground level by the volume of water in the deluge, but few areas slid to the bone. Given a few inches of snow that hopefully starts wet enough to stick to the boilerplate, Baker will be ready to go.
Ouch!
Can't say that Marmot Ridge was any better Tim. We made it up to about 6000 feet where we were almost blown off our feet and over the ridge...we had to dig in our toes and hold onto the ice...never experienced wind like that before!!! Pockets of wind blown snow were found along with some good laughs and some hot Phish Tacos!!!
Can't say that Marmot Ridge was any better Tim. We made it up to about 6000 feet where we were almost blown off our feet and over the ridge...we had to dig in our toes and hold onto the ice...never experienced wind like that before!!! Pockets of wind blown snow were found along with some good laughs and some hot Phish Tacos!!!
My altimeter said 6400', Big Boy. Wind was prob. 60-70mph!! You need to buy that Brunton wind guage. MMMM, Extra Tuong sauce on those open face fish tacos yields a sweet ambrosia for wind chapped lips.
aha, more addicts to graham's fish tacos!
and i have finally figured out WHY it is that said tacos
are irresistible to bc skiers! this came to me as i was peaking into the kitchen a weekend ago and saw that the cook making the tacos was none other than the fellow who had obligingly broken trail for us on the twin lakes road earlier in the day...so see, the tacos he makes are imbued with the bc spirit, how can we not respond to that ??
i am wondering whether my trail-breaking skills might improve as well, as a side-effect, you know... doesn't seem to work so far, but one can always hope...
and i have finally figured out WHY it is that said tacos
are irresistible to bc skiers! this came to me as i was peaking into the kitchen a weekend ago and saw that the cook making the tacos was none other than the fellow who had obligingly broken trail for us on the twin lakes road earlier in the day...so see, the tacos he makes are imbued with the bc spirit, how can we not respond to that ??
i am wondering whether my trail-breaking skills might improve as well, as a side-effect, you know... doesn't seem to work so far, but one can always hope...
How much of the twin lakes road is there? I'm thinking of checking out the area and want to gauge how early of a start I should get (hopefully the snow is better than what was posted here!). Some corn would be nice.
twin lakes rd: we were able to drive to the yellow aster butter th sat before last in a subaru. past that point, it's a struggle even with no snow at all. took about 1.5 hours of mellow skiing on the road to reach the lakes, with trail broken, mind you.
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