October 5, 2013, Chowder Ridge

We drove up the forest service road to cougar divide late friday night, with plans to lay tracks on the hadley glacier the next day. We didn't expect to see snow so low down! The last few miles of the road were covered in snow, and the last couple of switchbacks we found ourselves following only a skin track up the road. breaking trail redneck style. Cougar divide was a shitshow in the morning - 5- 12 inches of snow half covering rocks, logs, shrubs made for exciting skinning and occasional booting. A few poor routefinding decisions made us pretty late getting to the base of chowder ridge, and we decided that the glacier would have to wait for another day.   I skinned most of the way up chowder ridge, and had a sticky run down the mellow slopes, while my partner chilled and enjoyed all of the spectacular scenery. After my lap we enjoyed afternoon libations, and watched mt baker come and go in the clouds. We saw a lot of goat tracks, as well as what looked like bear tracks and maybe a few cougar tracks. We also saw tracks that looked like wolves. I don't know if there are cougars or wolves in this area so if anyone knows better correct me. On the way back along the ridge we noticed some ski tracks leading down the east side of cougar ridge, and saw a couple other skiers, so we followed them down for a quick lap in 8 inches of snow on top of grass... It was cool running into you guys! The hike/skin/bushwack/splitboardski/struggle back to the car was even more fun on the way back! It was a great day in the mountains, despite the mediocre turns.