December 8, 2007, Ptarmigan Ridge, Mt. Baker

Arrived at busy parking lot with mountaineers avy course, thankfully they weren't headed to the slopes, because today was a good day to be in the Baker backcountry.

Sergio and I skinned outta the lot around 930 and made good time to artists point, then traversed beneath Table and on out towards the CP (Coleman Pinnacle). As always, it is much further away than I think, so we stopped short and hit some good lines down to the basin. Such good powder, fluffy and light. About 6-9" on top of the rain crust that was firm for turning.

This was very similar to my last experience up here back in 05 (http://www.climbwashington.com/reports/baker021805.asp). Same great lines, same basin, same great pow.

Since I needed to be back in town at 5pm (Seattle), we set our turn around time for 3pm at the low, but it was already 130 so we decided to head up to the Table/Herman Saddle.

Since we were down in the basin we thought we would follow a skin track that went left (north) around the other side that looked like it would meet up with the saddle. This never happened, it dead ended, then went on around Table , then across Iceberg Lake. We then thought we might have to battle darkness before returning to the car, but reached the Herman saddle at 4 pm.

Quickly de-skinned and made our way down the varied snow conditions. After fresh pow the whole day, the brakable crust and horribly skied out terrain threw me off, especially since I bit off more than I could chew (for mileage) that day. Once down to the Bagley Lakes, we skinned up and got out just in time. Back to the car just in time before it turned dark at the empty parking lot.

Bluebird skies, good partner, good snow, not the best route finding, but I had a good excuse for why I could not make the Corporate Xmas party that night......