Powder and smoked salmon at Mt. Baker

With a total of zero powder days to date—and no end in sight to the Colorado drought –we made a quick hit up to Mt. Baker last weekend for some stormchasing, smoked salmon, and the Mt. Baker Beacon Rally.  Talk about core, this is the coolest ski area north of Silverton. They’re calling it a low snow year, but Baker’s base is well over 100 inches already. With a 20-inch storm coming, $130 fares on Southwest, and on open invitation to the Beacon Rally, throwing down for a plane ticket was a no-brainer. Seattle-based BCA sales director Steve Christie met me at the airport with a cooler full of beer and smoked salmon. We were on first chair at 9 AM Friday. That was actually the only lift ride we took all weekend: the backcountry out of Baker’s upper lot is easily accessed without lifts—and remained virgin through Saturday afternoon, when the throngs from Bellingham and Seattle started showing up and beating it down. We knocked out three runs off Table Mountain, out the resort’s west boundary, on Saturday, and another four runs Sunday off Mt. Herman and then Table Mountain into Swift Creek.  On Monday Steve manned a station at the Rally–the largest transceiver event in North America. He’ll have a report on that next. Everything about Mt. Baker reeks of core skiing: the diehard locals, the totally honed patrol, the Tap Room, the progessive boundary policy. If you’re looking for a place to escape the drought, head East on Washington 542!