Home > Trip Reports > Jan 13, 2013, Baker Mazama Dome

Jan 13, 2013, Baker Mazama Dome

1/13/13
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
4707
7
Posted by ND on 1/14/13 9:26am
Sunday was a day of constant re-evaluation.  Original plan earlier in the week was to do Coleman Pinacle, but after some feedback from Saturday we decided to leave that for another day.  We set out from White Salmon intending to climb drop into the drainage and then up the ridge above price lake.  We found 6-8" of completely faceted blower over an unbreakable crust.  After a couple hundred feet of turns we decided to bag that plan.  We climbed back up and hopped in the car to head for Heather Meadows and Mazama Dome.

We toured out to the saddle and wondered how soon Table Mountain would just turn into a mogul field.  When we got up to Herman Saddle we found that snow had much more sun effect then we had hoped for earlier in the week.  More time for re-evaluation.  We decided to head up the mainly east facing chutes on Mazama Dome since they wouldn't have any sun and no one had skied them.  Todd was tired and decided to forgo the last little push and just wait at the bottom of them.

Mike set a nice bootpack up what my S1 said was a 48-50 degree pitch and climbed around to the top.  Seeing some exposed rocks and trees at the top I decided just lean against a tree and strap in where bill goating would not be required.  Jason went for another line further skies left.  Mike got himself positioned on the entry to the chute and his sluff promptly removed all powder from the center of our line.  I guided him past the snaggly little trees until he could point it and managed to snap off a picture with my phone before he slashed a nice powder cloud into me.  Surprisingly the firm layer bellow wasn't ice, was not bumpy and rode great.  I dropped in slightly left, did a quick cut and opened it up when no sluff came.  Despite all the tracks further down I actually found the turns were great out in the saddle all things considered.  Going over and out the south side of Herman.........well ummm it was interesting?  Overall we were able to salvage a pretty good day, lemonade.
Lenticular Cloud forming over Baker

Congratulations on finding an untracked line within a 5 mile radius of the Upper Parking Lot by Sunday.  That place has become a zoo!

Myself and a couple other guys left some of the lines down the west face of Hermans Saddle shown in your last picture. That particular run is one of my favorites.

Don

I thought about riding those chutes on saturday but chose the other skin track that went to the false summit of herman instead to get a longer steeper run. Everyone that had gone that way dropped in off the other side so i had the only line on that face, at least at the time.

author=dberdinka link=topic=27014.msg113818#msg113818 date=1358219526]
Congratulations on finding an untracked line within a 5 mile radius of the Upper Parking Lot by Sunday.  That place has become a zoo!


I have to agree.

Last Saturday several of us broke trail to Mt Anne. Looking off the summit we counted 19 people (I think 5 different groups) that followed our track. Not complaining - I follow tracks too, but I’ve been out to the Mt Anne area at least annually since 2003 or 2004 and never had to share it with another party until now. Interesting how many more people are out here now. Can’t blame them; it’s a great place.

I was wondering if we would actually get turns in at one point because Mike's jaw was dragging in the ground after we saw how many tracks were out of table.  The backcountry at baker might be busier then the ski area on sunny days.

I remember going up to Herman's Saddle in the early 90's with a busy day being two other skiers, yep there are more folks in the backcountry, but the tracks are erased with the next snow fall.

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2013-01-14 17:26:07