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Backcountry Skiing blogs, videos, photos, and a whole lotta stoke.

Look Out Hippies, Here We Come! | Crater Lake, Mt St Helens and Mt Baker, WA United States | 02/06/09, by Dark Star

Skiing the Backcountry Travel Series Part II : Exploring the Pacific Northwest
(View Part I, Rocky Mountain Road Trip, here)

After having such a blast on our Rocky Mountain Road Trip, Jillian and I were already feeling the travel itch again.� While brainstorming potential destinations, Jillian looked at me and asked, "What's that spot on the weather channel that's always covered in purple?".� And it was set.� We were headed to Mt Baker.

Every skier wants to ride here at some point, mostly due to tales of "another 4 foot storm" annihilating the area, but it's important to remember that it's not uncommon for 100mph winds to accompany storms that sometimes drop more rain than snow. Timing your trip right will be the difference between multiple feet of cascade pow or the inevitable rain-butter.

Nevertheless, the Pacific Northwest is like nothing you've ever skied before and the options for those willing to step off the beaten path are literally endless. Just be prepared.

Skiing in Oregon can more or less be broken down into four major zones: Ashland, Crater Lake, Bend and Hood.

Starting from the south there's the great college town of Ashland as a base camp with nearby Mt. Ashland ski resort, Pelican Butte, and Mt. Mcloughlin as major backcountry objectives.

Between Ashland and Bend, Crater Lake National Park offers a plethora of options, including Diamond Peak, Mt. Bailey and Mt. Thielsen.�

In Central Oregon, with Bend as a departure point, Mt. Bachelor, the Three Sisters Wilderness, and Mt Jefferson host a wide range of amazing descents.

Mt Hood offers some of the more easily accessed backcountry ski terrain in Oregon, but to be honest, that's not saying much!� Backcountry skiing in Oregon generally requires long slogs, winter camping and if you're lucky- a snowmobile.




Just across the Oregon border lays a major mountain backcountry skiers have drooled over for years, Mt. St. Helens. Then, in the blink of an eye running north, Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainer, Snoqualmie Pass, Stevens Pass, and Mt Baker rise sharply until the Canadian border. There's also the option to head to the ocean and hit the Olympic range, or just bag it all and head way into the land of the wild to explore the eerie North Cascades.

"So many options. I wonder where we should go before Baker", was the last thing I said to Jillian before we were packed up and headed on our way to tag what we could in the few days we had. Although Oregon offers a ton of amazing peaks to ski, we knew Washington was where we'd want to spend most of our time as it usually holds the nations deepest snowpack, and we had a buddy to stay with. You have a much better chance of skiing the deep when you're in Washington as Oregon doesn't seem to get hit quite as hard. But we had to break up the trip from Tahoe, so we chose Crater Lake as stop #1.�

Crater Lake National Park is worth visiting just because it's such a surreal place; never mind making turns. There's the great Mt. Scott, mini golf lines abound, and then there's dropping into the caldera itself. I have to mention, I'm not sure if it's actually "legal" to drop into the volcano...but it sure is fun!

Numerous lines exist and we also found out visitors complete circumnavigations of the entire crater rim, which I guess is also an option. The problem with that is the absence of turns, but it does help you scope a line should you chose to drop into the volcano. You just might want to check with the Park Service first before you actually drop into the caldera as they do update avalanche conditions and can tell you what's cool and what's not.

After a few days in the Park, Jillian and I woke one pre-dawn morning to unlimited dog licks, and headed North to Washington. Right over the border lays Mt. Saint Helens, stop #2.� This one has it all. An earthy start through some beautiful trees at 4500', climbing onto gigantic ramps around 6000', a good pitch at the upper sections approaching 35 degrees, with up to 6 grand of potential vert on the way down. You can also look into the crater from the top at 8365', a crater that once didn't exist prior to May 18th, 1980 when Mt. St. Helens erupted and lost 1312' off her top. The worm flows route is most often used in the winter and spring, and just make sure to check restrictions when you go as permits and fees change with the time of year.

We rode pretty stable cascade crud when we were there, which is great for your mental well-being as well as great for opening it up with huge mocking GS turns on a beautiful fresh canvas of snow.

Although most of Cascadia gets dumped on with exceptionally moist maritime events, nothing compares to Baker. This is where we really wanted to be, stop #3. Not only is there Mt. Baker proper, there's also Mt. Shuksan. Arguably one of the more aesthetic peaks in North America, the north face of Shuksan offers glaciated skiing with extremely high consequences- it's not a descent for the faint of heart. Good thing you don't have to commit to anything too burly as one of the best inbounds/sidecountry destinations around is your back up plan. But before we made it to Baker, Jillian and I woke up to an interesting surprise one morning.

"Really?" was all we could say.

This is what happens when your dog is severely pissed at you for being stuck in the car too long. Since we've gotten home duct tape and stickers have covered the shame, but at least we learned an important lesson: if you have dogs, always make sure the distant friend you're staying with tells you if their girlfriend is allergic before your dogs are forced to sleep in the car without you. My buddy Mike was way into our visit, saying our dogs would be ok, then upon arrival telling us they weren't welcome inside.� This is why we no longer have a dashboard in our Suby.�

Looking back on the trip, the dashboard doesn't matter. We were stoked because the weather satellite was covered in purple and bottom line: Mt. Baker really is that deep.�

The Mt. Baker resort lies at the end of a twisting highway and has great backcountry access from the top parking lot, which is also super dog friendly. Baker did break the world record for snowfall back in 1999 with 95 feet of snow. It should be experienced by everyone. There's a super cool vibe with great locals and even greater stories to be shared over beers after, "another one of those four foot days". The difference this time is you won't be listening to another story secondhand, this time, you'll have the first hand account you've been waiting for because you made the trip.

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