Day 56 | Baker

Fi Roy is visiting from England.  She worked for Whistler Kids last season and wanted to come back to ride for her holiday.  She came up with the brilliant idea of riding Mt Baker for a couple days.  I've been hearing great things about the amazing snow and terrain at Mt. Baker.  Since I've never been, I thought it was a great idea for us to try a new ski mountain for a few days.  It's not too far from Vancouver, BC and a 2br condo was pretty cheap.  Not to mention a full day lift ticket is half the price of a ticket in Whistler.

I was torn between wishing for sunny skies (think photography) and wishing for powder.  I was hoping for the best of both worlds, but of course, that didn't happen.  My wish came true for the sun but unfortunately, we're in the middle of a warm front and the snow conditions were comparable to snow conditions in April.  Fortunately, I was able to take some beautiful photographs.

The terrain here looks amazing!  There are many open runs that look like they would be awesome in the powder.  One run is called Natural Halfpipe and it would be so much fun to jib on a soft packed day. Sadly, the snow wasn't that enjoyable off piste so we stuck to mostly groomers.  The runs are clearly marked as to what is in bounds and what is out of bounds.  Back country riding is very accessible and it looks like you don't have to hike very far.

Mt. Baker has eight chairlifts, all numbered accordingly.  By 1pm we had hit the six that were open including Chair 6, which took us to "The Canyon" - which sounds like something extreme but ended up being more of blue run by Whistler standards.

We headed inside the White Salmon Day Lodge for lunch.  This was quite an interesting lodge as we were in the company of a cat that ran around the tables looking for scraps.  And the baby grand piano really added to the old skool ambience.  After lunch we decided we had had enough of spring like groomers and called it a day.  Instead of buying a couple more lift tickets tomorrow, we plan on renting some snowshoes and doing some exploring on foot instead.  Weather still calls for warm temps and clear skies.