July 14, 2018, Mt. Baker, Sholes Glacier

Headed up to Baker today to ski the Sholes Glacier. Always a great place to visit... even if the skiing isn't great (which it wasn't today!), the scenery is great and there's lots of solitude.

Still a lot of snow at Artist Point but after a short section on snow, the trail below Table Mountain is bare for a while. It's possible to drop down a few hundred feet from the trail to the snow filled basin or just follow the trail which is probably covered over 40% of it's length with snow with a good boot pack in the snow-filled sections. Beyond the trail junction for the Ptarmigan Ridge and Chain Lakes trails and that first saddle, there's far more snow coverage. It's a 50/50 proposition as to whether it's worth donning skis at the saddle as between the bare spots and the growing sun cups and runnels it can be just as efficient to travel on foot. The basin south of Coleman Pinnacle is well-filled in but the stretch west of the Pinnacle that leads to Camp Kiser is bare for a long ways. It took about 2 hrs 20 minutes to get to Camp Kiser, traveling on foot most of the way.

The Sholes is well filled in but has quite a lot of runnels and the suncups are not small. The top 600-700 ft or so skied well, particularly the very steep section but that was about it. When I've headed out there in the past, I have popped over the saddle below the Portals and skied down toward the Rainbow Glacier but I quickly bailed on that option today as that side had worse runnels and suncups than the Sholes.

So... the skiing wasn't great but the weather and scenery were awesome and there was no one else out there, so at least those boxes were checked on the day. Oh... and somehow I missed this place in the past few years... but Rifugio's Country Italian Cuisine on Highway 542 is well worth the stop on the way home.