September 24, 2005, Beyond the Coleman Pinnacle

Hours in the car........................4
Miles on the trail.....................10
Vertical feet on skis...............260
September 2005 turns.....Priceless

   Unlike last year, a sorely needed early winter storm did not did not appear to bring freshies to the Baker area. However, with the month running out and no turns in the book, I had to just go and see what the mountain was offering.

   The small snowfields along the Ptarmigan Ridge that my son and I had played on 8 weeks ago were gone.I didn't really want to go on to the lower glaciers, clearly shiny from miles away.So when I found a tongue with a snow-like surface past the Pinnacle and not quite to the Sholes Glacier, I decided that this was as good as it was going to get.

    I could look all the way back to where I had started 2 hours before from the top of the run.The views of Baker's icefields confirmed my decision not to carry on down the trail. So I yo-yoed the little tongue of snow-like substance until I had fairly earned my September turns. I startled a group of hikers rounding the turn during my last run. As you might expect,I got some strange looks and queries, being the only person with skis on the homeward trail.