The Snowboarder's Journal - The Snowboarder's Journal 19.1
SLOW DANCE: A Ballad of Mt. Baker
Words: Colin Wiseman 2021-09-27 15:02:11
A March powder day with the Vans crew cruising beyond resort boundaries. They visited Baker for a week and scored. Pictured here: Dan “Danimals” Liedahl, Blake Paul, Mary Rand and Darrell Mathes race the crowds for first tracks. Photo: Oli Gagnon
When I was 12, I had my first slow dance at a Bar Mitzvah in Victoria, BC. The girl stood a head taller than me, with long blond hair. The song: “November Rain” by Guns N’ Roses.
Any child of the 1980s should know this Axl Rose power ballad, but for those unfamiliar, it’s a nine-minute-long epic about heartbreak. It was a big task for a 12-year-old learning how to slow dance, but I nervously shuffled my way right through the end of that thing, Slash’s guitar solo marking my transition from childhood to adulthood.
Coincidentally, I also started snowboarding the following winter, first strapping in with a couple of friends from that Hebrew school at the south end of Vancouver Island. And, for some reason, whenever I start thinking about a snowboard season, the opening riffs of “November Rain” run through my head.
Maybe it’s appropriate. In the Pacific Northwest, November rain literally sets the tone for the season. After the longest summer in memory, one filled with ambivalence, November rains were a sign of normalcy in 2020—a sign that the one constant in my life since that winter nearly 30 years ago would remain consistent.
The rain fell hard, dropping snow at upper elevations. Washington state’s Mt. Baker Ski Area opened with a solid base and continued to thrive. We were lapping Shuksan Arm by the end of November, riding lifts, escaping from a particularly uncertain world with the unbelievable luck of a solid season unfolding at home. And it kept snowing. A unique mix of snow, sun and stability meant high country laps were plentiful while inbounds stacked with each storm. November flowed into December and January. I rode more than ever, at home.
Indeed, the crowds showed. While many resorts implemented stringent reservation systems, Baker made do with a natural cap based on parking and social distancing measures to spread folks out. It made for longer lift lines and a slower pace, but those were trivial antagonists to the mental escape of resort days with friends. We were lucky to have such a calming, celebratory space in such turbulent times.
By January, some 300 inches of snow had already fallen, and Mother Nature kept the storm cycles coming, stacking through February and into March. There were fewer warmups than normal, preserving the snow. By the end of the season, snowfall totals sat north of 700 inches, which is a bit above average for Baker, but not remarkably so. Yet the undulating pace made it seem like powder days were more plentiful than in years past. Perhaps it was my lack of travel that allowed access to corners of the mountain I hadn’t tapped in some 15 years riding there, a familiarity bred through repetition.
The winter became a long, slow dance—the luckiest year to be able to prioritize powder riding whenever possible. Lifts spun into May for the first time in decades, and eventually the crowds dispersed. Through it all, I had a camera in hand—maybe just a pocket point-and-shoot or a little mirrorless kit, but some days the full block to document some of the strong riders who call Baker home, and a few who passed through. So did many others.
This is a small offering from thousands of frames, moments in a winter that solidified our relationship with home. A six-month ballad of life on snow.
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