March 10, 2006, Mt Baker

<br>In anticpation of my long night in Seattle, I took today off and headed up to Baker once I could finally get up & get going. I started riding about 11am and the weather was Bluebird for most of the day. It goes without saying that YESTERDAY was probably a much better day but there was still plenty of powder left overs to be found (in fact, a couple of inches of new over night).<br><br>The Canyon was closed and just about everywhere you went, there were signs by the management informing you of the HIGH avalanche danger in the backcountry. There was some pretty good visual evidence to be found above chair 8. A wide slab (~14 in crown?) starts just below the top of the ski patrol's bomb "clothesline" and continues around the corner towards the Arm. There was another slab directly opposite this slide at the top of the prominent steeps that face the top of Chair 8 (sorry- if it has a name, I don't know it).<br><br>Despite the best intentions of the ski patrol, there were plenty of people out of bounds and out along the Arm. Didn't notice much out towards Table but I did see some tracks on Herman. Anyways, the slopes to skier's right alongside Chair 5 had plenty of nice deep powder despite being a little tracked.<br><br>The best area was the upper area off to either side of Chair 1. Some areas were still knee deep powder. Turned out to be a nice day off of work. ;D