December 4, 2011, Herman Saddle

        Tamar, Davey, Whisper, and I arrived at the upper parking lot of the Mt Baker ski area at about 9:00 A.M. and started out towards Herman Saddle at about 9:30. The beautiful weather and optimism of some great turns and great photos always seems to give me a bit of the butterflies. About a quarter mile from the car my black lab decided to go for a swim which was just fine except he jumped in at the worst possible spot for getting himself out. Which he was unable to do without my help. The ice just kept breaking on him as he tried and tried to get out. I eventually walked out and reached as far as I could and got a hold of his collar and pulled him right out. A bit of a scare but all ended well and we were on our way. It was a great hike out. There was a couple of avi courses being held and a lot of friendly people out which made the hike that much more enjoyable. For our first run we headed west from the Saddle down through the trees(I think this is called Mazama pass). It was great fun as there was a lot of nice soft powder through these little chutes. We popped out of the trees at Iceberg Lake and hiked back up to the Saddle. For our final run we traversed hard skiers right over to the bottom of Hidden chute coming off of Table Mt. We had a great ski down from there, the snow was a little crusty in spots and nice and soft in others. I have no complaints. It was a great tour day! The bottom picture is the pool my dog had to be rescued from.