Winters here in the Pacific Northwest are famously gloomy. It is cloudy and rainy most of the time but that doesn’t mean we never see the Sun. It does mean that when the Sun comes out, you have to go out also and enjoy. So we did. The travel mode of choice this day was on snowshoes.
The high pressure system moved in on Thursday or Friday and was scheduled to hang around over the weekend. We thought it justified a trip that takes a little longer to get to. The Mt. Baker ski area is about a 2 and a half hour drive from Seattle. This is a trip we did before back in 2010 on a similar type of day.
When we got there around 10:30 it was stuffed to the rafters with cars. We did manage to find a parking place though in the lower area.
Nice view from the parking lot
There is a road up the a high point called Artist Point which doesn’t get plowed in the winter. Snowshoers like to hike up there and that’s what we did.
Along the way you have Table Mountain on the right
And ski runs to the left
Pretty steep climb at the beginning
The snow was pretty
Once you get to the top of the first climb you can look back and admire the work it took to get here.
The views to the left open up and you get your first good look at Mt. Shuksan
In front of you is Mt. Baker
Artist point from here is just a parking lot, but it’s covered in snow so you can’t really tell.
We first got a good look at Mt. Baker from Kulshan Ridge
And then over to Huntoo Point for a good look at Mt. Shuksan. We got there right as a waxing crescent Moon was rising over it.
Time for some lunch
and maybe a Shuksan selfie (click the photo and look for the 
)
On the way down from Huntoo point I caught some dude blocking my Sun
Down in front!
From here you can see Table Mountain from the prettier, southern side
Lots of people come up here for winter camp training. You can see the remains of their snow caves all over the place. I took advantage to get an “artistic shot” of Baker.
The Sun was beginning to go down at this point (winter days are short here) so the shadows started to lengthen.
So we headed back down. Here is the track we took. Four and a quarter miles in 3 hours (with 5 hours of driving)
The elevation climbed was right around 1000 feet.
And we got to stop at Aslan Brewing in Bellingham for a early dinner 