Home > Trip Reports > ocTAYberfest October 12, Skyline Divide near Baker

ocTAYberfest October 12, Skyline Divide near Baker

10/12/13
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
3143
4
Posted by James Wells on 10/13/13 12:26am
Telemack and I had our sixth ocTAYberfest and celebrated six years of TAY (actually that was last month for Telemack).  Mack, Rusty Knees, and Mosetick came up Friday night, then we met Lynden Don and Mike in Maple Falls.

The destination of Skyline Ridge was kind of a flier, since we knew that there was none of last year's snow left.  We were counting on new from last week still being there.  The Ruth trip report (1+m above 6k) was encouraging.

Nothing to worry about.  We hit snow in the woods at about 5k, and by the time we reached the meadow at 5800, there was a foot or two.

The snow was pretty crusty, but we ventured along and found a NNE slope that skied pretty well, just a thin breakable wind crust over last week's powder.  After our first lap Dirtnerd showed up.  We decided to thoroughly slay the slope we had instead of looking farther along the ridge.  Numerous photos were taken, hopefully one or more will show up here.

Now for the good part: We got back to my place and there was a huge pot of salmon corn chowder that my wife Sara had made for us, which was consumed in its entirety by six hungry skiers.  Now that's love!
Congrats on 6 TAY's. Snow, good company and food - what a way to celebrate it!

This was a fine October tour and quite accessible.  There were several firm layers in the snowpack from the recent storm. 
One dump above 4500'  or so could give fresh on top of a pretty firm base.

The ever-modest Don Heath got 84 months of TAY yesterday and never even mentioned it until I asked in the car on the way home---Congrats!

We hiked the Divide known as Skyline;
Six TAYers left tracks next to my line.
Now I'm sitting at home
Typing out this bad poem---
Too bad "Rusty Knees" ain't my byline!

Great trip with a great groups of guys. Can't wait to ski with everyone again!

Also, for anyone passing through here in the future, this TR should be listed as "Skyline Divide"

Here is the link to a few photos from the trip:
Skyline Divide Photos from trip

and here is one of the group, minus DirtNerd:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/106080933@N07/10414566224/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Woohoo!

Wish I could have made it.  Nice to see pics of mac getting low.

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octayberfest-october-12-skyline-divide-near-baker
James Wells
2013-10-13 07:26:42