Mt Baker is a local mountain about 3 hours north of us, right near Bellingham and below the Canadian border. The mountain is supposedly a great place for skiing and snowboarding because it is super powdery (it set the world record for snowfall one year with 95 feet of snow!) and not too crowded. But, because it's far for a day trip, we haven't really explored it at all. Since we had the extra day for MLK weekend, we made a last minute decision to head up that way and finally check it out.
We had quite the adventurous day skiing! Since Nora is now skiing, I bought a ticket too and skied with her for a good chunk of the day. This was my first time on a lift and down a run since Evie was born 9 years ago! While I went with Nora, Scott took Evie on her first ever blue and black runs. GOOOOO Evie!
The big excitement came though when I bowed out a bit early - my legs were tired and so I went to go hang out by the lodge while Nora joined Kathy and Kinsey for a few more runs. Nora had fun skiing by me and waving. At the very end of the day, I texted everyone that I was going to meet folks at the car and headed over there.
Problem is that the end of the green run splits off so that in one direction, you can go to the lodge while going in the other direction drops you off right into the main parking lot. For the last run, apparently, Nora headed towards the lodge while Kinsey headed towards the parking lot! Poor Kathy fell into a powder section after making a last minute turn to keep up with Nora. By the time she got back on her feet, she couldn't find Nora anywhere!
Thankfully, a good samaritan saw Nora alone and brought her into the lodge office and they called me. We have been practicing with Nora to memorize my phone number and our address in case of emergencies and it paid off! I rushed over to her and she was warm and smiley in the main office. She gave me a really really big hug though when she saw me. When you ask her about it now, she says she was scared but if she was, she didn't show it!
PHEW! There was a scary minute or two there but alls well that ends well. And it's a good reminder that we always pick a meeting place just in case of these situations.
At the beginning of the day
Four person chair lifts are fun!
Goofing around
Nora got stuck in the same powder spot that Kathy later fell into
Look how deep that is! Her skis are literally almost completed buried, standing straight up!
The next day, we headed back into the Mt Baker area and went cross country skiing. Since it was a lower elevation, the snow wasn't as great but more than enough for cross country skiing. Towards the end, it started to really snow hard - there were big fat flakes coming down and it was so pretty! It was a great way to end the weekend.
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Oh man, what a scary moment! Glad everything turned out ok. And kudos to everyone for keeping a level head.
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