January 30, Baker Backcountry

Sunday January 30th Trip Report: Left a woefully vacant parking lot at 9:15am in sleety weather. Had to walk the first couple hundred yards to avoid scraping skiing on the normally covered road. Hiked to Artist Point in wet snow which had a 3"-6" inches of new . . . wet mush. Dropped down westward off Artist Point and followed the normal path along the avalanche slope towards the saddle near Noname Peak where Ptarmagin Ridge starts. We never saw a thing and stumbled about in the fog until we found some low angle slopes that we skied on the north side of Noname. Anything greater than 35 degrees comically slipped off beneath your skiis on the hard surface below, but did not look capable of slabbing. But we didn't dig any pits. Lots of vegetation and rocks showing but the north side offered some good turns in the fog and sufficient coverage to call it skiing. On the way back, we crossed some large soft snow slides of considerable size before Artist Point that had fallen since we had passed earlier that morning. Wouldn't have liked to have been there when they slid, but not likely high speed events being such soft snow. But since we couldn't see more than 100 feet, it'd have been a surprise if one was coming at you through the fog!  Good compass and GPS practice. Jersey cream turns were enjoyable. Welcome to the NW.