Artist point Snowshoe

Blue skies, be still my beating heart. 

Into the mountains we must go 😎.

We decided we were due for a nice day of snowshoeing. We got our gear and lunch together and drove to the ski area parking lot. The gate is locked and the road IS NOT plowed. This is what the gate/road entrance looked like on Mother's day, just one week ago.

As we were driving up near the Excelsior trail head area of the Mt. Baker hwy, the car in front of us put on his brakes and swerved. There was a black bear running across the road. The bear didn't waste anytime getting off of the road. He quickly ran into the forest safe and sound.

Ready to play!

As were we hiking up we saw a group of skiers/boarders using a homemade rope tow. It was fun watching them go up and down. It was a long run and fairly steep, definitely not for the faint of heart.

In the photo below, a boarder is getting set up for the tow up.

Beginning his ascent.

I video'd the ascent and the descent. You can watch them here.

Ascent: https://youtu.be/68iqp0WZiA8

Descent, with a nice jump:

https://youtu.be/tvvZltN8wbA

The views on our hike were fantastic.

In the photo below you can see Table mountain and Herman Saddle.

My husband working his way up the hill, we didn't follow the road, because we didn't want to and besides it was nowhere to be seen. We did follow an old groomed ski trail for awhile though.

Shuksan

Continuing our way up.

We eventually broke away from the groomed trails and headed up our own route.

We ate our lunch at this great spot, you can see Mount Baker behind me in the distance.

Not long after I took the photo below, a group of climbers hiked to the tree area just below Table mountain. They are going to be climbing Rainier soon and were going to use the weekend for training. They set up a snow camp near the trees at the base of Table mountain. We enjoyed watching their efforts while we ate our lunch.

Artist point is visible at the right of Mount Baker, in the photo below.

Can you tell that this is the Artist Point parking lot. Lots of snow up there yet. We couldn't even find where the bathroom was. The roof isn't peeking out at all.

Someone's tracks heading up towards Table mountain.

My husband enjoying the view of Shuksan.

If you look waaaay down the hill, you can see where we began.
The ski lodge and parking area are down there.

As the temperatures kept climbing throughout the day, the snow got softer and softer. This is what we found as we drove down the hill.

Our day in the snow couldn't have been better.

Garmin stats:
total miles - 3.65 miles
minimum altitude - 4369 feet
maximum altitude - 5209 feet
total ascent - 823 feet
total descent - 909 feet