Home > Trip Reports > 4 jan, 2014, winchester lookout flash mob

4 jan, 2014, winchester lookout flash mob

1/4/14
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
8247
7
Posted by bs. on 1/11/14 2:32am
on a windy, stormy day like today, the time seems opportune to catch up on some home projects.... like writing up last weekend's ski trip and editing some photos!

last weekend promised some of the first great pow of the season.  being the non-purist that i am, i spent friday enjoying the deep snow at steven's pass, taking run after run on the chair lift and working on getting my legs in shape for the downhill side of things.  that night, i caught a ride with scott up towards mt baker.  with my syncro still down awaiting completion of head gasket repairs (that i was happily putting off for the weekend!), i was grateful for a ride in someone else's 4wd.  we picked up a couple more friends a long the way, and by the time we reached the end of drivable conditions near MP2 of twin lakes road, a small party was assembled.



we drank some whiskey, set up some tents, pushed a car out of the ditch, and caught a few hours sleep before starting up the road in the dark with heavy packs.

we'd made it far enough up the road by sunrise to witness the first rays of colorful light illuminating the glaciers of mt baker.


skinning up the road went pretty quickly, thanks to good compaction from regular snowmobile travel.


soon we were above the lake and enjoying the ever improving views as we climbed.


my first look at the winchester hut.  damn, these things could get addicting...


a rather scenic spot for lunch...


while eating, we began scoping out the north facing lines across twin lakes.


the run back down to the lake was still in great shape, but it was easy to imagine all the tracks that would soon cover this run below the lookout.


once again, we found a skin track already set to the top of our line, and were grateful to the advance team that had arrived the day prior.


i didn't take many riding shots because we were messing around with video cameras for the descent, so you'll have to wait for the video clips to see how awesome the snow conditions were.  but we had a great run back down to the lake, and a pleasant skin back up to the hut.  with a few minutes of daylight left morgan and i decided to ride a NE line down from the hut and watch the sunset as we climbed back up.


the large ski crew had been joined by some snowshoe sightseers, and the hut was filling up fast.  as a contingency for this unsurprising turn of events, my small crew had left our camping gear down by the lake, planning to eat dinner up top and take a night run back down.  i was tired enough at this point to express that for the first time in my life, i'd rather go to bed than take a pow run.


however, one turn into the descent and all fatigue was forgotten.  it was nothing but pow turns and smiles all the way down.  i even tried to get a night pow slash photo, and was mercilessly sprayed with snow for my effort!


soon we had our camp set up, and i was looking forward to one of those rare 8+ hour of sleep nights that only seem to happen when i'm snow camping.


looking back up at winchester over breakfast, our headlamp tracks didn't look quite as gaperish as we'd feared.


there were still some fun lines to be hit on the other side of the lake, and we opted for a bit of recreational climbing rather than following the skin track again.


good friends and blue bird pow... does it get better than this??


i put down the video camera for a second to get a single shot of our first run.


and then it was back to the top to look down at the chute i'd been eying all weekend.  after some deliberation, i chickened out on riding it, but rowan stepped up to claim the descent of the weekend...




after that, we were all ready for some beer, so we took off back down towards the cars, enjoying the consistent downhill of the exit and setting off big slow wet slides as we went.


on the exit ride, rowan suffered the tragic loss of a skin from his pack.  fortunately an altruistic sledder saved the day by giving him a ride back up for it!  yay, we were not delayed on our way to some burgers at chair 9!


thanks to those who provided skin tracks, car rides, and good camaraderie.  this trip certainly proved that big groups of people in one area don't always preclude a great time!!

now let's hope all these silly scenic shots will be a placeholder for the rad videos to follow.....
That looks like so much fun!

dang that looks like an awesome trip

Very cool trip. 

Beautiful shots!

Thanks for writing this up ben, and for the rad photos! 
here is my footage from the weekend:  https://vimeo.com/83737614

*fixed the URL - Marcus*

Great write up Ben.  Fun weekend for sure. Thanks to you and morgan for the location selection and invite. Really fun crew, with an awesome extended group. Thanks for the food and whiskey!

Sick edit and solid riding, Rowan!

Im still trying,, both with the editing and riding. I did get quite a bit of good footage from all of us.














Well written T.R.!!

Every run was a blast! It's going to be hard to beat this weekend this winter.

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4-jan-2014-winchester-lookout-flash-mob
bs.
2014-01-11 10:32:49