Last weekend brought a nice dump of snow to the Pacific Northwest. Rainier was forecasted to get walloped and further north, we got a decent amount of snow as well.
A few brave souls explored the alpine as the snow was still falling on Sunday but I didn’t get out until Tuesday. It was worth the drive down to Mount Baker (or Kulshan) and I was able to start skinning below tree line. The lower glaciers suffered significant losses over the hot summer and, despite the snow, were still heavily crevassed making skiing a bit limited.
Mount Baker
Mount Baker Ski Area gets snow
There is about 5-15cm of snow on various aspects at Mt Baker Ski Area. Not quite enough to really ski, however, there were some brave snowboard and ski tracks.
Yesterday, Oct 3, I drove up the Mt Baker Ski Area road to do some hiking. As I got higher it became very obvious that my low-cut hiking/running shoes wouldn’t be too suitable for the conditions. Snow was on the ground already at Heather Meadows parking lot.
Road that leads to Artist Point via Austin Pass was closed for the winter and a bit of snow covered it at the gate. By Austin Pass the coverage was just enough (5-10cm of hard snow) to skin up. Skiing would have been a bit sketchy but possible.
The weather was excelent with occasional wind gusts, but not too strong. Mostly clear skies and around 0-5 degrees Celsius.
Next few days are supposed to be sunny and fairly warm, so I think the snow will melt to ground on south aspects but may hold on on shadowy north slopes.
Here are few photos to give you an idea how it looked up there yesterday:
