Mt. Baker photo journal...

Howdy everyone, I just wanted to take a break from the lack of blogging (i've been busy at work!) to show everyone some photos from my trip up to Mt. Baker, Washington a few weekends ago for a few days of boarding, beer, boots, buddies, baked goods and cabins. (ps... through the formatting of my blog, it cuts off 1/3 of any of my horizontal pics, so click on them for the full view)

On our way there, we took a slight detour through downtown Seattle where sure enough, we got stuck in traffic right next to the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile!!!

(art outside of the Evo Store. Fittingly made with snowboards, skis, and crutches)

While in Seattle, we drove to Fremont to pay our friends at EVO a visit. For those of you not in the know, Evo is a fun little company out of Seattle that offers amazing deals on snowboarding, ski, wakeboarding, and skateboarding equipment. Their main presence is on the web, but they do have a brick and mortar location. Sam has spent some quality time with Evo recently as she has ordered at least five various pairs of snowboard boots, each failing to fit. So... we thought instead of paying for S&H over and over and over again, it'd make so much more sense to just try the boots on in the store. Needless to say, that's exactly what we did. Needless to say, it took about three hours. So, while Sam fiddled with boots, Julie, Amy and I aimlessly fingered through merch, sat in big comfy chairs, read snowboarding magazines (ie: looked at photos), and talked boarding with some highly energetic and informative sales staff. Waiting for Sam to find the perfect pair of boots could have been a very painful process... but thankfully it was pretty enjoyable. And to make it better, the Evo folks sent us on our way through Seattle rush hour with a goodie bag full of Red Bull, Clif Bars and stickers.

The cool thing about driving up north of Seattle towards the Canadian boarder is that the surrounding mountains are so much more dramatic. We have mountains down in Oregon, but they are older and smaller, more worn down over time. Up here though, each peak is snowcapped and rugged... it lends itself to the imagination and day dreams of climbing each one of them.

Our lodging for the weekend was in this cute little cabin in Glacier, WA. Roughly a thirty minute drive from Mt. Baker and about 45 minutes from Bellingham. The cabin was perfect. Not too cutesy, but yet not to rustic that we had to go pee in an outhouse either. It had a full sized tiny kitchen, a wood burning stove which heated the whole place, hot shower, and was really built with huge logs that formed all the main load bearing walls. There was no paneling, no ceiling, no art, minimal light sources, and no TV. We made some tasty meals in here and some of Julie's infamous cookies. As well, the people who run the cabins are really nice and they even lent us some missing ingredients we needed for our baked goods. If one were to take a walk down the unnamed road nearby, they'd be privy to a beautiful sweeping vista of Mt. Baker in the distance with a gurgling river running nearby. It was a great place to watch the sunset on the mountain. I think that I'll defiantly be stopping by this place again.

When passing through Glacier on your way to Baker, you can stop and get a coffee and scone at the Wake N' Bakery. Not only is their name amusing, but their pastries looked delicious and they had a pretty wicked cool back fence made from old ski's.

Saturday morning we all woke early and got the the mountain, primed for a good parking spot and an excellent day on the mountain. The conditions were perfect for springtime, high at about 50 degrees, beautiful blue skies and soft snow. Sadly, some patches were icy due to half of the runs being in shade, but really... providing it was early March... we really couldn't have asked for anything more (though fresh dumps of powder would have been nice).

The coolest thing about Mt. Baker has got to be their backcountry terrain. In order to access backcountry from the ski resort, you have to pass a dude at ski patrol who's job it is to stop you and make sure you have all the necessary backcountry gear (shovel, probe, beacon, friends, etc). Seeing how none of us have invested in backcountry beacons ... we could not gain access, but a girl can dream and also plan her next trip to Baker.

(I want to play here....)

I love Sam's reflective goggles...

Sam of the Mountains....

Sadly, the only disappointing thing about our trip to Mt. Baker was the ass-hole quotient of the people on the slopes. I don't like making broad sweeping generalizations about a certain age-group or demographic, but there were a fair amount of male snowboarders between the ages of 16-25 that did not do wonders for representation the male species. I could go into a massive diatribe about that, but.... this post is about pretty pictures, not ass-holes.

(props to Julie T. for her fine camera)

gleeful anticipation.

It is with eager anticipation that I await my first snowboarding trip of the season this upcoming weekend (this past week saw the first substantial dumping of snow in the Cascades). Normally, the resorts on Mt. Hood don't have enough snow or chilly weather to open till after Thanksgiving, but not this year my friends. Thank you mother nature! This year, I went in with some friends and purchased a Mt. Hood Meadows Season pass which I am greatly looking forward to using. Last year, I had purchased a Timberline/Ski Bowl Fusion pass.... but I think this year my skills have progressed enough that I'm fully ready to put myself to the test on Meadows more challenging and diverse terrain.

I remember my first visit to Meadows, it was last year and my friend Julie was treating me to a late birthday gift of a day on the mountain. The night prior was my friend Heather's birthday and I probably celebrated a bit too much during beer pong (but I was crowned beer pong Champion) and dancing. Anyways, needless to say I overslept and what resulted was a very awkward and amusing awakening for everyone involved ;). Also, some other friends -new friends- were making their way to Meadows that day too and once again... it was just awkward all around. Well, the conditions that day were crap... crap crap crap. Sleeting, horizontal snow that stung your face in the 30mph winds. In fact, the weather was so bad 2/3 of the people on the mountain left after lunch time. Julie and I decided to stay and boy were we in for a treat. After lunch, the winds died down and we got dumped on... we're talking a feet or so of fresh powder in about an hour.

Anyways, to celebrate the powder, Julie and I ventured onto the black diamonds. What had prior been icy steep slopes were covered in sweet, sweet, white powder goodness. I don't think I've ever been so happy, I laid down some of the prettiest turns I've ever laid down, spraying fresh powder with every turn. Ah, it was so, so, so amazing. And, what made it even better is that while going down one of the runs, folks from the chairlift over head yelled "YEEEAH!" for us as we passed beneath. Their gleeful cheers sang my soul out loud.

It was on that day that I was convinced that there was a God, and.... I walk with him, and I talk with him, and we go snowboarding together in his creations. it's kinda fun.