Powvember 5, 2011, - Mt. Baker, Heliotrope/Coleman

Video: http://youtu.be/dL_EFpfLhAQ
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/millcreekmm/sets/72157628070593826/

Arrived around 8:30 and drove to mile 7/8. Honda CRV slid down the road sideways and stuck in the ditch. Randy and I got out of My Volvo XC70 to see if we could drive by until we noticed that my car was sliding down the hill with no driver! I jumped in and found a safe spot and installed cable chains on the front wheels since I have road tires. We flipped a bitch and drove 1/4 mile down the hill and parked.

I jumped up on my rear tire to access the coffin and then lost my footing and fell on the crossbar with my lower ribs. Not cool. Much pain. Must ski.....

Walked the road for a mile (totally driveable) and crossed Grouse Creek and then made the march towards Kulshan Creek. We started skinning pretty quickly after heading up the talus field.

Hardly any wind, but damn cold. a 2mph breeze would make me chilly.
Once we got into the sun on the ridge, it was much better. Lots of tracks up high, and lots of people all ventured to the same knob where it looked like Alpy BC with all the tracks.

We continued on and made our way towards high camp, but off to the right to 8200 (altimeter, but I think we were lower than that). Nice views of the Thunder Glacier and Bake. We took off as clouds appeared to possibly threaten our descent. Randy warned me of "nervous turns" since I had not skied since June, but I went full throttle and had more fun than I can remember. The pow was great, uber fluffy with a nice raincrust 9" down that carved well if you floated that far down.

At the base of the glacier I hit a couple jibs and Randy followed. He hit a rock, double ejected and landed on his ribs on a large rock. He laid there yelling and moaning. I thought that I had to call for rescue, but he was okay after 10 minutes or so. He also tore his ArcTeryx jacket and scraped his arm and chest up. Early season can be dangerous, so please be careful.

We picked our way through the talus field, but I got too many core shots and decide to walk down. That part sucked. Beautiful powder and walking down in it.

Death march to the car.
We passed dozens of younger gents going up the trail with skis and boards and no packs at 2:30. Not sure what they thought they were going to accomplish.