Dec. 22, 2019 - Code Blue @ Baker

One would think the advantage of being approx. 30 mins west of Burlington would yield an advantage when it comes to getting to the parking lot at Mt. Baker in a timely fashion, but the route is so roundabout (literally 7 of 'em) from Ma & Pa's house that you only barely come out ahead of the urbanites who've zipped up I-5. Regardless, we did manage to arrive around the time first chair was loading out of the White Salmon base area and after a quick change in a chilly parking lot hopped on C7 and whisked ourselves away into the alpine.

The weather was trending clear with only a few bands of high clouds moving through, providing that intermittent December sunshine which is always such a treat. We started the day with some laps on C8, enjoying packed powder down to about the cliff band beneath the chair and then bailing onto the groomed terrain as the off-piste rapidly became unskiable, crusty mank. Yes, yesterday would've been softer, but it also, very apparently, would've been wetter. After a few laps to warm up the legs, we migrated over to Pan Dome via C6 and spun some laps on North Face to the groomed terrain allowing one to bail back to 6 via the main groomed run off 4. The hamstering became tedious so we broke left and hopped on C2 and made our way to the midstation on C1. Plenty of folks were giving the Chute a go, both fall-line from the top and around the side and while it didn't look terrible in the rolling terrain above the constriction, it certainly was bony and packed firm in the gut. We took a Pan Face lap, ending in one heck of an icy luge track out to the midstation of C1 and decided that wasn't worth repeating so we cruised out to Austin and enjoyed the early afternoon sun and nice packed powder down to Home Run, which we took to the Heather Meadows base for a late lunch.

After a hearty lunch of burgers and salty fries, we tried to make our way back towards White Salmon via North Face only to discover C5 was not moving. We hustled back over to 6 for a few more hamster laps until the chair got going again, then cruised up 5 and down the main run to the base to end the day. Of note, when nearing the top of 5 we saw a large group of patrollers out on the Elbow working on something. Some radio chatter we overheard led us to believe there was an accident of sorts requiring significant medical aid. I hope it wasn't avalanche-related because there were huge crowns visible on the Arm (esp. above the Beast), Hemis and even right at the top of C8 (with a bootpack running right up the bed and over the crown). This snow really needs some more time to settle and stabilize - we saw some tracks down Hemis as well as quite a few the Arm and out towards Table (however there was no evidence of the "Seattle Skintrack" today). Be safe if you venture beyond the boundaries this week - there seems to be a weak layer buried deep from the previous storm cycle and there's a massive load of heavy snow on top of it above 4.5k