I've been thinking about paying a visit to Mt Baker for a couple years now and finally managed to schedule a trip... it gets a lot of yearly snowfall and still has a small resort feel as it is quite far from most of the population density of western Washington. It wasn't hard to find reasonably priced lodging nearby (within 30 minute drive).
The drive to the resort this morning was easy and relaxing with hardly any traffic on the road... I had a slight scare when rounding a corner in the mountains, where several (10-15) tiny birds decided to take up half the lane. Thankfully no care were coming from the other direction and I was able to swerve around them, as only 2 or 3 flew away.
When I got to the mountain it had already started snowing, as an incoming storm was arriving. Parking was simple and the lift lines non-existent. Even though I was out on the slopes a little later (half-hour after opening), every run for the first hour or two was fresh tracks!! The landscape is littered with cliffs and there are many "expert only" areas roped off.
Today had a pretty high avalanche risk with somewhat slushy (but also light) knee-deep powder. I struggled to find tree runs of any reasonable length and mostly just wandered around the mountain trying to get a mental map of the terrain... but there was that one, "out of bounds" patch that led to a creek... I had to hike out but it would definitely be worth it if the snow was in better condition.
Visibility was pretty poor and early in the afternoon the storm started to pick up.... I decided to call it a day and head back to the rental. When I got back, I went over today's footage and found that the GoPro messed up all the video timestamps (somehow it cannot correct them)... talk about a bad software experience... so all my footage for today is marked as December 31st 2015 -_-
The highlight of today was from a cliff scare that turned out to be a pretty fun technical challenge:
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