11-12-2012, Mt. Baker, Heliotrope-by-brail

Shred and I met up at 0615 at the 116th P&R in Marysville with the intent of finding some turns. Telemetry indicated Rainier had gotten the most snow, but having correctly surmised that the gates were unlikely to open, we headed North for the Mt. Baker highway with no specific objective. Snow level was around 4000ft for non-negligible accumulation, but 8" of very wet cascade concrete at Heather Meadows sent us elsewhere. We tried Twin Lakes road, but turned back after nearly getting Shred's subie stuck. With all ski-from-the-car possibilities exhausted, we headed for Heliotrope. The road was perfectly clear all the way to the trailhead, so we racked our skis and headed up.

The trail was mostly clear for the first 1000ft of vert (other than some sections of very sketchy frozen gravel), after which coverage slowly increased to a bit less than boot-top at the base of the Hogsback, where we passed two descending skiers who reported windswept conditions up high after spending the night in 60mph gusts. After booting up to around 6000ft, we unracked the skis and followed a faint skin track up into the clouds. We passed two skiers from Bellingham Mountain Rescue on their way down, and topped out 30mins later around 7100ft with another pair of skiers from WWU.

While we had one or two clearish patches during the ascent, the clouds swirling over the ridge for our descent yielded perhaps 30yds of visibility. The snow up high was nice, creamy windpack with a dusting of windblown powder over the top, and the skiing was pleasant, if a bit hesitant due to the vertigo-inducing whiteout conditions during the run down. The last few hundred feet saw the clouds thinning, and we cruised back to the top of the Hogsback, choosing to rack our skis at that point for the sake of our bases. The hike out was quick and uneventful. Double cheeseburgers at Graham's in Glacier refueled us for the drive home; it was a great day out in the alpine, hopefully things will start to fill in soon.