December 28, 2004, Table Mountain Circuit

Yanna and I headed up with intent to have a lazy day on the lifts at Baker and then go for a quick evening tour to give Sasha the elderly dog some exercise. When we saw the perfect weather, the nice new snow, and the massing crowds, we decided to change plan and hastily put together packs for a tour. We exchanged pleasantries with another skier at the trailhead, Dave, who asked if he could join us. We said "sure" and headed up toward Artist Point to see what we could see. Once there, we decided to head behind Table Mountain for some solitude. We cut low below the south face, which had lots of rollers from the cliffs above and a few loose slides, but no propagated slides. Spread well out, we hustled across as quickly as possible, noting the boot track way up higher in the starting zone. Eek. This seems like a good area to avoid "monkey see, monkey do" behavior! Once at the far side of Table, we had a snack and then took a run down the back side. Nice snow!! It was a few inches of loose on top of carvable windpack, much like freshly groomed powder on a storm day. Not bad. We then headed up to the crest of Ptarmigan Ridge (is that the right name?) for a look a the view followed by a great run, starting with deep powder, somewhat heavy but quite forgiving and bouncy. At the top of the rige, there were spots where the top inch would fracture and slide away, so freshly blowing snow seemed to be falling on a great sliding surface up there. Not much of a factor on this day, though. After the deep pow, we had more of the firm carvable snow to the flats below, where we skinned up to get up to Chain Lakes and Herman Saddle. We finally got a break after doing our own breaking much of the day, as there had been lots of activity between the lakes and Herman Saddle. Sasha especially enjoyed the firm highway of an uptrack after having postholed a bit too much for her liking. We hit the saddle just as the setting sun was lighting up Shuksan - what a show! The colors in the sky behind were quite varied - sublime! The route I'm familiar with, to skiers left of the saddle, looked like windblown cucka that had been heated in the sun, skied on, and refrozed, so we opted to try skiers right in hopes that we wouldn't get cliffed out in the dark. What an awesome run down from the saddle! It did require a little interesting cliff threading near the bottom (in dramatically waning light, oops!), but the snow was deep, though a bit heavier than that out on Ptarmigan ridge. As long as we kept out tips out we were all fine, but at times that was tough due to the flat light. A final slog along Bagley lakes and we were at the car as full-on dark arrived. We saw headlamps following us from way up below the high cliffs of Table Mountain. Obviously we weren't the only ones milking a fine day.

Yanna and I had so much fun we slept in the van and hit the lifts today for a "rest day." Not quite as nice as the backcountry, but it was still worthwhile.

Some day I have to try "the usual places" up at Baker, as few other people seem to make the slog to the backside of Table and perhaps I should take the tip from the other BC skiers we see in the area and try some closer in stuff. However, I've very much enjoyed every trip I've made back there, between the varied views and the fun runs we've had.