Skiing Through the Woods Map of Coleman Glacier Ski Route Heliotrope Ridge Panorama Skiiing Towards the Summit Skiiing Up Past the Spires Baker Summit Panorama Coleman Glacier Panorama Solar Halo The Upper Coleman Glacier View from Coleman-Deming Saddle Summit View of Puget Sound The Summit Dome and Grant Peak Skiing the Roman Wall Skiing Down Toward Colfax Peak

We had been planning to do this trip since May, hoping this year's huge snowpack would provide good skiing even on the heavily crevassed Coleman Glacier. However, the same 'La Nina' weather pattern which produced the heavy snow also made for lousy weather nearly every day in May and June. We postponed the trip several times in May, and then finally decided to go on the weekend of June 12-13. However, by Friday the forecast had again turned against us, with rain predicted to arrive by late Saturday. So we decided to take decisive action, and left Seattle immmediately that Friday afternoon, hoping to ski up to base camp later that evening. The Glacier Creek road to the Heliotrope Ridge trailhead was blocked by snow at 2950 ft, and we skied up from there at 6:30 PM. The snowcover was patchy and we attempted to skin up the pavement for a while, but we were forced to remove our skis for a short distance. Eventually the snow deepened and we skied up to the regular trailhead at 3700 ft. Here we decided not to follow the trail and instead headed due south through the forest into a large clearing visible on the map, which led to a huge open bowl of the Grouse Creek drainage on the west side of Heliotrope Ridge. Alex here is clearly enjoying the fine ski conditions in the forest.