January 14, 2015, Mt. Baker, Squak to ~8000

Thanks to dub_xion's recent report 3 of us headed up there on Tues. for a great day of skiing in this winter of our discontent.

We thought the road walk was a bit further than 2 miles - took us about 50 min. at a quick pace. We then opted to follow the sled tracks up the drainage, which went well. I worked up quite a sweat when we climbed up into the sun and above the inversion. Ended up eating lunch in shirt sleeves!

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We didn't want to be skiing down too much of the crap down low in the shade so set a 1:30 turnaround time, which ended up being about 8000 ft. The upper slopes were fantastic with a couple inches of still light snow over a very firm but not icy base. Even the runnels were smooth so didn't present a problem.

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The valley bottom was tougher, esp. when we got pushed into the snowmobile tracks, but slow careful skiing got us down without incident (other than tired legs!). It was nice skiing most of the road back to the car - thank god I'm not a snowshoer!