March 18, 2006, Sweet, Sweet Death - Baker BC

Winters use to be different.  Back in the day, the snow would start piling up alongside Highway 542 not long after one passed through the town of Glacier.  By the time you crossed the Nooksack River Bridge the snow banks would be as tall as your car.  These days XC skiers who frequent the logging roads in this area are lucky if there is any snow at all and seldom does it pile up deeper than a foot before melting away in the next warm front.  

It's a shame, because during years with a low-elevation snowpack some of the best and biggest lines in the area can be skied on one-way-tours that begin from the upper parking lot of the ski area and end where the highway crosses the Nooksack River.   There is great skiing to be had on the "backside" of Mount Herman as well as on the seldom-visited Barometer Mountain.  Most of these routes will drop a skier into the valley of Anderson Creek where a five-mile long logging roads provides a quick exit down to the bridge.    

Right now there is a marginally sufficient snowpack down low to make such tours feasible.  On Saturday my friend Tyree and I linked together two of the biggest and best chutes in the valley into one long tour.  We were blessed with partly sunny skis and a foot or more of settled and stable powder.  

We parked at the Nooksack River Bridge around 8 AM then quickly hitchhiked to the upper parking lot.  After breaking trail to Herman Saddle we skied down the backside to Hayes Lake in glorious snow.   A traverse across the headwaters of Anderson Creek led to the south ridge of Barometer Mountain, which we followed to the summit.  After sampling more delicious powder in its 700' north bowl we slogged back up to the top of a steep couloir breaching the east face of the mountain.

I had first skied this line about five years ago in miserable conditions.  We called it "Sweet, Sweet Death" after a classic Dilbert cartoon;

Dilbert:  Is there more to life than just working?
Dogbert:  Yes, there's also the complaining about work.  The nightly periods of unconsciousness, and sweet, sweet death.
Dilbert: Maybe I should have kids.
Dogbert: To share the joy?

Regardless, the couloir offers a sustained 2100' drop to the valley floor of Anderson Creek.  On a map it begins just north of a subsummit marked 5735'.  Conditions were ok but not great.  Slightly sun affected at top and bottom with powder over avi-debris through the middle.  

Once we reached Anderson Creek at around 3400' elevation we could have skinned down valley a quarter-mile and reached the logging road.  Instead we sucked it up and began climbing up the west side of Slate Mountain through open old growth forest.  At an elevation of 4400' we began a long slightly rising traverse to the north.  
 
Our objective was another long, beautiful chute splitting the heavily forested north face of Slate Mountain.  In the past we called it "Clean Slate".  On the drive up to Baker this feature is readily visible across the valley just before reaching the Maintenance Sheds.  It starts at 2400' of elevation and ends abruptly around 4700' in forest.  A short distance above a steep bowl leads to the top of Slate Mountain.  The opportunity for a 3000' run exists here.

After an interminably long traverse we pulled our skins off near the base of the upper bowl.  We cut north through forest to find the top of chute.   It's slightly convex, so as we dropped into 18" of light powder at its top we could look down the entire thing straight into the Nooksack River.  As we descended the snow got progressively heavier but was still enjoyable.  When the chute ended in more dense forest all that was left was a five-minute bushwhack down to the Anderson Creek Road where we wearily skated the final quarter mile back to Tyree's truck.

Stats: 8 miles, 4000' of up, 6000' of down    

In the bowels of Sweet, Sweet Death


Skiing down Clean Slate


Clean Slate from Highway