Mount Baker offers 'lots of snow, lots of terrain and lots of backcountry'

Baker's inbounds terrain totals only 1,000 acres, but they've got to be some of the most bump-filled, chute-crazy, hit-rich, gully happy 1,000 acres anywhere.


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	A snowboarder cuts through the powder at Mt. Baker Ski Area.

The vertical drop from the top of Baker's Hemisphere Chair (elevation 5,089 feet) to its White Salmon lodge is only 1,500 feet and change, but some of the steeps you see under and along chairs 5 and 6 are downright spooky. Not to mention the out-of-bounds backcountry along precipitous Shuksan Arm visible from chair 8, where you'll regularly see tracks after a fresh snowfall.

Did I say fresh?

Well, it doesn't snow cats and dogs here, its snows snarling lions and snapping wolves, more than any other ski area in North America or anywhere else, sometimes beyond 90 feet in a season.

"Everybody here gets spoiled," says Eva Gonzalez, a three-discipline instructor (ski, telemark and snowboard) at Baker. "If you don't have powder every day, it's no good."

Appropriately, it's been good more often than not at Baker this season, the 50th since the first chairlift was built here after the formation of Mt. Baker Recreation Co. in 1953. Base depths all season have rivaled those of 1998-'99, when Baker set a world record for seasonal snowfall at 1,140 inches -- 95 feet even.

But there's something else about Baker, beyond scary steeps and beaucoup snowfall, and it has to do with what Baker is not.

"It's not corporate," says Matt Bowen, a snowboarder from Bellingham we meet after getting off chair 5. "It's all natural."

"There's no TV in the lodge. There's no Starbucks," chime in two of his crew, Floyd Gobin, Justin Berlin and a dude who identifies himself only as "Sparrow."

Actually, Mt. Baker Ski Area is a corporation, with about 150 stockholders and a board of directors. But at the same time, it is the antithesis of today's modern corporate ski area.

There are no high-speed detachable six-packs or quad chairlifts at Baker. All the lifts are slow quads and doubles. There's no village at Baker full of shops selling overpriced stuff. The nearest lodging is at the town of Glacier, 17 miles away. Baker doesn't do any "cross-marketing" with "corporate partners" like film, auto and fuel companies.


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	From left, Derin Carroll of Bellingham, Michelle Trujillo of Seattle, Kendra Langston of Wenatchee, and Mary Thalasinos of Bellingham ride chair 5 at the Mt. Baker Ski Area.

"We've given up potentially thousands of dollars a year in sponsorships," says Gwyn Howat, Baker's marketing director and daughter of general manager Duncan Howat. "We consciously do not allow that to try and offer some sort of reprieve from the great logo-ization of America. We're one little holdout."

Baker is a profit-making business, but the management seems to realize people come here not to escape, but for a real mountain experience.

"Sometimes when you go to the huge resorts, yeah, it can be comfortable and a good vacation, but it's like going to Disneyland, it's not real," says Duncan Howat. "This is not Disneyland. You have to be alert. Not that it's dangerous, but it gives us a little edge."

Some say the management has a little edge, too.

"Management are (jerks)," says Derin Carroll of Bellingham, who we meet on the mountain recently and who nonetheless lauds the place for "lots of snow, lots of terrain and lots of backcountry."

It's Carroll's 19th day at Baker this season. But it seems a friend of a friend rode the lifts recently without buying a lift ticket -- "poaching," it's called. The guy was caught and booted, and Carroll's friend, a passholder, was banned from the area for a week.

"I understand punishing the person who poached," Carroll says. "There's no reason they should take her pass, too."

Gwyn Howat says the passholder was punished because she coached the poacher on what to say if he was caught.

Baker's tickets are the cheapest of the six major ski areas in Washington, Howat notes ($37 on weekends and $29 weekdays for adults).

"The people who are poaching are actually making the experience more expensive for everybody else," she says.

As for the terrain, Baker is only as edgy as you make it.


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	A snowboarder catches air off one of the many jumps.

Not actually on Mount Baker, the ski area ranges over two hills, Hemispheres and Panorama Dome, about six miles northeast of the big white 10,781-foot volcano and about three miles from the stunning 9,131-foot spire known as Mount Shuksan. On rare sunny days from the top of Pan Dome, as it's called, you can see both of these colossal piles of rock and ice, and dozens of lesser peaks between and beyond.

"I got up here and saw Shuksan and said 'Oh!!! This is like Europe,' " says Gonzalez, who was raised in Spain and learned to ski in the Pyrenees. "It has lots of steeps. It took me two years to learn it all."

At the same time, the runs on the ski area's two hills are rated only 31 percent expert, and if you aren't one you can cruise interesting groomers all day. The trails called Daytona, Easy Money and Nosedive on Hemispheres are probably the best blue runs on Baker.

But newcomers need to use a trail map so they don't stray into terrain beyond their skills level. Steeps that might put a tingle in your spingle include chute-rampant Gabl's under chair 5 on the Hemispheres side, Northface, Gold Mine and Pan Face on the Pan Dome side, and a bunch of others lacking official names.

"What's listed on our trail map is actually less than half of what's there," says Gwyn Howat. "They're known to locals, but a lot of people won't give up the names of their secret stashes."


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	Nicki Oleson and Nick Ennen, both of Bellingham, plan their descent from the top of chair 5.

While stash searching, you must keep in mind that there are three categories of restricted areas at Baker.

You can access the backcountry from the ski area but only if you first demonstrate to the Ski Patrol knowledge of avalanche safety, the current forecast and are equipped with a snow shovel, avalanche transceiver and a partner. This is uncontrolled wilderness and people have been killed here. But if you've earned your props and chops, it can offer superb untracked riding after a dump.

Then there is roped inbounds terrain. The ropes mean the slopes beyond are bodacious. You can go under them if you're good enough, but if you need to be rescued, the area will charge you a minimum of $500.

The third type of restriction is signed, closed, dangerous inbounds terrain where no one may go.

In sum, Baker has the kind of slopes, in and out of bounds, that attract elite-level snowboarders and freeskiers, some of whom own cabins in Glacier.

"Most all of the major riders come and go at least once a season at Baker," says Howat.

The place is steeped in snowboarding tradition since it allowed the single planks back in the day before other areas, and as the venue for the continent's most hallowed snowboard race, the Legendary Banked Slalom (Feb. 6-8).

And because lots of its natural terrain seems uncannily designed for riders. A natural halfpipe with moderately high banks serves as the Banked Slalom course and flows off the top of chair 5, a quad built two years ago.

Razorhone Canyon is similar but longer and with higher banks -- it's the long ravine separating the area's two hills and drops off chair 6.

Speaking of which, chair 6 is an old double with what might be the longest, steepest off-ramp in the Northwest, and it will be upgraded to a quad this off-season. The chair 1 off-ramp is similar, and it's slated for an upgrade to a quad in 2005.

The upgrades will eliminate the nasty ramps, which are a pain particularly for snowboarders, who load and typically unload with the back foot out of the binding. It is said K2 invented its Clicker step-in binding after company riders experienced those ramps.

"It's kind of like a rite of passage at Baker," Howat says.

But the new quads won't be detachable high-speed lifts, which have become the industry standard.

"At Baker, it's extremely rare to see a lift line longer than five minutes, and we'd have to increase our lift ticket prices," she says. "Right now we're actually getting some grumbling about making chair 6 a quad. They want us to maintain it as a double because that's what keeps the powder around."

In fact, the chairs can be spaced so capacity is not increased much.


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	White Salmon Lodge, which opened in 1991, is only about a 1,500-foot drop from the top of the Hemisphere Chair, but some of the steeps below chairs 5 and 6 are downright spooky.

The chairs will remain slow, in fitting with Baker's modus operandi. Just like this 50th anniversary. No ceremonies are planned.

The place is not about pomp and plush.

It's about the mountains.

IF YOU GO

Place: Near the dizzying, twisting, turning terminus of state Route 542 about 56 miles east of Bellingham.

Toll: Adult all-day lift ticket on holidays and weekends is $37; $29 Monday through Friday.

Infrastructure: Four slow quad chairlifts, five slow doubles and two rope tows; two base lodges, Heather Meadows (operated on weekends) and the award-winning, log-framed White Salmon (opened in 1991); halfpipe and terrain park, which some consider redundant given Baker's stegosaurus-shaped natural terrain.

Etc.: Average snowfall totals 647 inches (more than 53 feet), but Baker holds the world record for seasonal snowfall at 1,140 inches (95 feet) in 1998-'99; vertical drop is a long 1,500 feet; terrain rated 31 percent expert (which seems way low), 45 percent intermediate and 24 percent beginner across 1,000 acres (inbounds).

P-I reporter Greg Johnston can be reached at 206-448-8014 or gregjohnston@seattlepi.com.

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