Owen and I drove separately from Seattle and enjoyed a wonderful socially-distant, but still highly social, ski tour on Christmas Eve. Nearly every bridge on I-5 North had a spinout crash on it in the early morning and the drive took a bit longer than normal, but was worth it as we crested the last few rises to the Mount Baker Ski Area and views of Shuksan looking regal in its winter coat.

We cruised up on the edge of the groomer to Artist Point in about 35 minutes. A quick traversing ski brought us to the flats below the South Face of Table Mountain. The wind which had been blowing up at Artist Point was nearly gone and we enjoyed the beach-like atmosphere and Shuksan views.

About 1 hour and 15 minutes in, we were on the Southern shoulder of Table Mountain, checking out a cool igloo some folks had made there with an expansive view of Baker. A pretty icy and wind-crusty traversing ski brought us down to Mazama Lake. We quickly transitioned and crossed Iceberg Lake. The climb from the lake was pretty icy and required care skinning up without ski crampons.

We weren’t ready for our day to be over at this point, so we decided to head up to Herman Saddle to see what it looked like on the North side. After a short ski down, we skinned up and were able to skin the whole way on sun-softened snow. Unfortunately, the North-facing slope down to the lake looked icy and windblown, so we called it good here and had lunch in the sun with a nice view of Baker.

Our turns down to Bagley Lake had their moments, but conditions certainly weren’t amazing. No bother—spending a day out of the house with a good friend I hadn’t seen in months and phenomenal views more than made up for it. Great day.