Table Mountain

Table Mountain, WA
Mt. Baker/Artist Point Area
October 27, 2007

We may have been a little too eager for winter. Mike had his annual waxing party on Friday night, and it seemed that taking our newly tuned skis out should be a good idea. Kirsten, Becky, Andy (w/ Tundra), Anastasia, Marcus and I drove up to Mt Baker Saturday morning. We didn't arrive at the upper ski area lot until about 10:30 and when we arrived our motivation jumped out of the car and hid in some un-snow-covered bushes near the parking lot. The snow was sparse, although it did look like there was decent coverage above 5000 feet. We had driven three hours to get here, so we figured we ought to give it the ol' college try. We booted and skinned up the east shoulder of Table Mountain and took a lap on some decent old dust on crust, paused to talk in order to push our return to the car past 2:00 before skating down most of the road back to the car. Then, Scotch Ale and mega meat pizza at the North Fork Brewery. Total ascent/descent for the day: 1300 feet! And some of that was on dry ground. But it was a beautiful day and it's always great just to get out in the mountains, especially for skiing in October.