May 13, Artist Point etc

We thought about Baker and Paradise for today. Baker or Paradise? Well, the road to Paradise just opened, and we haven't been there all season. Yeah, but we haven't been to Baker all season either, and the freezing level might be low. Ok, Baker.

We drove through mist in the lowlands, enjoying our late start with hopes it would mean we'd see clearing on our tour (afternoon clearing in the forecast). We entered thick fog as we drove up toward the ski area parking lot. A few skiers who had just come down from an aborted trip warned us we'd never get anywhere near Artist Point because they couldn't figure out where to "turn up" in the mist. We got up by the Artist Point parking lot and decided to just hunker in a wind shadow and have our lunch. No reason to go out to the point itself because it was cold and windy in the open. We saw a few other human figures appear and disappear along the ridge toward where Table Mountain rises up steeply (at least we know it does this, even if we couldn't see it today...).



The "let's stall and eat lunch" trick didn't work so we gave up on our idea of touring around Table Mountain and headed back down in the thick fog. Off the groomers, we were in thick potato mash. Once back at the car, we decided to drive down toward the white salmon base area and see if there was better visibility there. There was - with even a view of Shuksan. We skinned up to the top lift just below Pan Dome, and after a nice rest in sunbreaks, we enjoyed a mellow groomer run back down the the bumper. We didn't see anyone over here despite better skiing and good visibility (but saw one other car and one fresh track coming off Pan Dome). All in all, a very nice mellow day with some surprisingly fun turns. It still isn't really consolidated out there, so it was nice to cheat by using the groomers at the ski area for some firm spring turning fun.