Mt Baker, Washington, USA

Mt Baker is a mis-nomer. You don't actually get to ride on Mt Baker. It simply sits there, teasingly in the background. Us mere mortals are subject to the Mt Baker resort, which is close to, but not quite Mt Baker. It's kind of like Red Mountain, but not exactly. Red Mountain is a product of evolution. You do actually get to ride on Red Mountain, but it is dwarfed by its recent baby brother - Granite.

Back to Baker...
A pretty reasonable amount of terrain, spread over a number (2 or 3) peaks that are in a ridge as it were. Peaks are figurative you understand. Mt Baker itself at 10,000ft stands twice as high as the "peaks" that the 8 chairs graciously deposit us on.

The snow is Whistler-esk rather than Red Mountain-esk, which is quite logical given the proximity to the coast. And I'm all in favour of the wetter variety. It provides more feedback, and requires less of the stuff to fall to warrant the grand label of powder day. Why, only on our second day were we subject to the punishment that is 6" of fresh powder. Although the rather poorly endowed chap that did the measuring really needs to get himself a ruler. Personally I made it 4", but who's boasting?

The terrain is varied with the occasional flat spot, through green groomed runs, blue tracked out powder, black delights, and 2 double black diamonds, plus a hideously large number of cliffs. Now contrary to popular American doctrine, it appears that you can do what the heck you like here (within reason), and ducking a rope to jump off a 60ft cliff seems to be the norm. Thankfully I'm not normal, so no-one asked me to jump with them... although I did manage to get my fair share of airtime.

The town we stayed in is called Glacier. Town is a mis-nomer, and defies the staggeringly small number of buildings of which it consists. Glacier is also a misnomer, as there wasn't a lump of snow in sight. Permafrost this place ain't... Yet, one drives up the Mt Baker Highway for 10 miles in beautiful scenery, where the green moss on the trees gives an ambient light that photographers would die (if not at least pass out) for... and suddenly the lush vegetation becomes a winter wonderland, where the trees are dripping with cumulating snow. The sudden change could have been penned by Lewis Carol.

Another 10 miles on, and you're at Mt Baker (the resort, not the mountain itself), and snow there is a plenty.

Down the road from Glacier in the opposite direction of our 10,000ft friend that we can't ride on, is a place called Maple Falls. Maybe it's just me, but the name Maple Falls, sounds like David Lynch came up with it as a Twins Peaks 2. Certainly the scenary is remarkably similar. It just doesn't have the expansive water falls, or indeed the twin peaks.

Oh, yes, the powder. Well there's just so much to choose from. Anything off chairs 1 and 6 is nice - but watch for those cliffs. The Canyon is fun, but short lived. Even the relatively tame chair 8 provides some sweet pow pow fresh after a dump.

After a day or two, the in bounds pow gets tracked out, and people venture off through the gates to play in the backcountry. Due to too many people dying, Mt Baker (the resort, not the mountain) has introduced a strict backcountry policy, and quite rightly too. The list is too long to list here, so check out their website. But it's worth it. There's stacks of stuff in reasonably easy hiking distance, that will make you wet your pants. Maybe. I didn't though. Wet my pants that is. But some of the runs we had were awesome. But do heed the warnings. You could easily die there.