A Month in Glacier
Technically, Glacier isn’t a city or a town or even a village. It’s a census-designated place, solely identified for statistical purposes. When you mention it, most people think you’re talking about the National Park in Montana. Glacier is a tiny little ski town, one of the few left in America that hasn’t been overrun by rich vacationers. Nestled in the shadow of the North Cascades, winter in Glacier, WA is dark, damp, and isolated. But for the people who reside in here, there’s no place on earth that feels more like home. Spotty cell service can only be found in a few select locations, like under the awning of Graham’s Restaurant and store. Wifi can be found at Chair 9, the local watering hole. Going to “town” for groceries means driving 45 minutes to Bellingham. But what is far away from Glacier is not what matters. People come for what it’s close to, and that is snow entombed mountains. Glacier is the closest you can live to Mt. Baker ski area where 659” fall annually, where a world-record 1,140” fell in the 98-99 season, and where you can see the peak of Mt. Baker proper on a rare clear day, the second snowiest place in all of the United States according to the Farmer’s Almanac.
Mt. Shuksan
As a native Californian who thrives on sunshine, I was a bit nervous when I started dating a Washingtonian who raves about the state because of its persistent grayness and the amount of rainfall it receives. The first time Brian described Glacier to me he mentioned such selling points as “the sun never comes out” and “it’s always raining” which he always followed with: “which means it’s snowing in the mountains!” This was a foreign concept to me. My home mountains, the Sierras start high and get higher. If it’s raining in the Sierras, it’s raining. I was unfamiliar with coastal mountain ranges like the Cascades, with their seemingly impossibly low elevations. Rain in Glacier at 906’ elevation does in fact translate to snow on the mountains, which begin at about 3500’ and top out (in the Glacier area) at 10,781 on the summit of Mt. Baker. During our first winter together, I convinced Brian to come down to Tahoe where pow dumps are inevitably followed by sunshine- the best of both worlds for the two of us. We had a great season. But, when Brian saw me popping Vitamin D like candy and lethargically dragging my pale corpse around after only three sunshine-less days he looked me in the eyes and solemnly said, “I understand that we will not ever be able to live in Glacier and that my Mt. Baker days are over. You would not survive.” True love’s sacrifice.
The Nooksack River
Brian slashing some pow
Fast forward one year. We are living in Glacier. In a van. After a week of rain in town and snow in the mountains, I’m hovering between being on board because of the great skiing, and being annoyed because it feels like we live in a swamp. In an attempt to woo me, Glacier is putting on a show. The weather shifts, the temperatures drop, and it begins to snow all the way down to town. The van starts to dry out. The snow gets even better. The sun even peeks out. We spend our days skinning out the endless routes into the mountains, everything new to me, everything familiar, yet exhilarating to Brian. The terrain here is advanced and intimidating but we begin to settle into a groove and through open channels of communication, we find skiing within my comfort zone.
Home sweet trailer park
Star on the skin-line
Enjoying a deep day
The snow keeps coming. It stacks up quickly, and the mountains look like they have a mid-season blanket coating them a week into December. The locals high-five and shout "Baker's back!" as they reap the benefits of their patience. After several lackluster seasons, their dedication has paid off as the snowpack quickly climbs to the deepest in the country. Each morning, dedicated riders roll out of bed and out to the roadside, where they hitch a ride up to the mountain. Brian and I take a more leisurely approach, peeking our noses out from under our blankets at around 9:30AM, cooking a big breakfast and then driving up to go out for a tour with Titan and Star. There’s plenty of snow to go around and unlike the ski resorts who draw thousands of pow-crazy city folks who hack the snow into a bump riddled frenzy, Mt. Baker is for the locals. And the locals here are quite the bunch. There are more snowboarders than skiers, and more males than females. A lot more. The skewed ratio is typical of a ski town, but it’s exaggerated in Glacier. People are here for the pow and everything else is secondary. No one is here to get laid (if they were they’d be disappointed), to make money (Glacier has the lowest per-capita income of Washington’s 522 areas [Wikipedia]), or to pursue anything else other than shredding. Daylight hours are for riding. Once the sun goes down, people drift back into town and congregate in kitchens to cook dinners together and to drink beer. It’s easygoing here. People float easily through the evening on good, chill vibes.
A clear-cold day in the backcountry
Shuksan making an appearance
Without cell phones, and in many cases internet, life slows down. Notes are scribbled on scraps of paper and left on front doors and people scrawl missives on frosty car windshields like “Brian and Laura call Tom.” People who are renting or live here full time have landlines; all the numbers start with the same three digits so everyone just memorizes four numbers per household. If no one answers the phone, you just swing by. If no one’s home, you go back to your place and hope that maybe they’ll happen to stop by later. We live in the trailer park, which is void of both internet and cell service, but eventually we always connect with whoever we are looking for. When arranging ski partners you must find your buds in person and agree upon a meeting time for the morning. Then you show up at the appointed time and wait. If your pard is running late, you have no way of knowing until they’re already late. But it never matters anyway. They’ll be there and you’ll go skiing.
Star and my track on the left, Brian on the right
Making our way to the top
Mt. Baker is one of the few ski areas that refuses to become a ski resort. You won’t find fancy hotels and gourmet restaurants. There’s no Starbucks or Patagonia store. There’s a lodge and that’s about it. It’s wonderfully wild up at the mountain. The parking lot boasts some of the best views anywhere with Mt. Shuksan looming quietly above. You’re welcome to camp out in the lot as long as you like. At $54, lift tickets are still affordable. If a lift blows down on a stormy day, the whole mountain doesn’t shutter, they simply tow skiers behind a snowmobile up to more sheltered lifts. There’s a wild west feel to the mountain and it’s not the curated kind that you find at Jackson Hole, it’s the result of a ski area that plays by it’s own rules. Because we are temporary residents here this winter, we didn’t spring for the $750 season pass and have spent almost all of our ski days touring just beyond the area boundaries.
Camped out in the lot
Snoooooow
I’m surprised at how quickly the last month has come and gone. Surprised by how at home I feel here. I’m surprised I haven’t spiraled into a sun-deprived depression, surprised at how soothing I find the sound of rain on the van roof. I’ve been surprised at the consistently great skiing, and the way that we can find untracked lines with blower snow every single day that we go out touring. Surprised at the wonderful community here. Unfortunately, our time here this season is coming to an end as we’ll be flying out to Peru on Saturday. But Glacier has made an impression on me and I can say with certainty that we will be back. From our freezing sub-zero nights camped in the parking lot when everything including our contacts and potatoes and seven gallon water jug froze, to the deep powder, to the look on Titan and Star’s faces as they plow through shoulder deep snow, to dinners with friends, and everything in between, the last month in Glacier has been one for the books.
Cribbage with Star
The night sky
