Home > Trip Reports > November 22, 2014, Heliotrope Ridge

November 22, 2014, Heliotrope Ridge

11/22/14
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
31366
4
Posted by Bobby Marko on 11/22/14 1:08pm
We headed up to the trailhead Friday after work with friends. I was surprised to find that we were the only others at the trailhead. Since it was raining heavily we all went to bed early in the back of our cars. No snow was in sight. We woke to a couple of inches of snow and loads of cars pulling into the trailhead!

Booted until about 4600 feet and then started skinning. Visibility was constantly changing. One minute we'd have beautiful views of the surrounding glaciers and the next you couldn't see 50 feet in front of you. Same went for the wind. We ended up skiing back down at 6500 feet due to the lack of visibility. But plenty of people were going higher - and there were a lot of people around!

It was my dog Latigo's first time chasing powder. I think he's addicted now.

By the end of the day the road was getting pretty icy. We saw a 4x4 having some issues getting up the road .25 miles from the trailhead on our way out.

Dave put together a video from the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCakKui9ORo
Snow quality was pretty decent up high. There were some deeper pockets of powder in places and some sections of exposed ice that were easy to avoid. As we got closer to the trees it started to get pretty thin, but we managed to ski pretty much all the way down to the trees. 


I agree with dandedj - when we got a visibility window, the skiing was excellent from 7000'!  Went back up for another lap, but it got socked in on the way down. 

author=Bobby Marko link=topic=32752.msg136678#msg136678 date=1416719307]
It was my dog Latigo's first time chasing powder. I think he's addicted now.


That's one lucky pooch! Thanks for the TR.

More pics and a link to our GPX track on my blog: http://bobbyandmaura.com/snowshoeing/heliotrope-ridge

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november-22-2014-heliotrope-ridge
Bobby Marko
2014-11-22 21:08:27