NFNWR is short for the north face of the northwest ridge on Mount Adams - what a mouthful to say. During the time I’ve been skiing in Washington, there’s been some opinions that this line might be less and less skiable as climate change impacts the mountain. With a fat high elevation snowpack and after seeing that some friends skied this line, I knew it was time to pounce.

I’ve done Ruth Mountain previously in the summer and I thought it had some of the best views in the North Cascades for the relatively easy level of effort. I couldn’t say no to the same views with even more snow, tagging Icy Peak this time around, and skiing back down the enticing slopes of Ruth.

As straightforward of an up and down on Mount Baker as you can get. Great to revisit this route, but man is it kind of a boring slog in the sense that the views don’t change that much. The conditions this weekend were a little uncertain to go for anything bigger and I certainly needed the confidence booster after last week’s debacle.

I’ve always wondered what kind of outing I’d be capable of off the couch, and on this day I really paid for it trying to attempt two classic steep ski lines on Mount Baker.

The coastal mountains of British Columbia are a magical place. I was a little worried coming into this with the historically bad lower-elevation snowpack, but it ended up not detracting from the experience whatsoever. Indeed, the conditions at the bottom of the Whistler resort were a little dire, but it was sooo white once you got up in the mountains proper.

A Fifty Classic Ski Descent of North America that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. This one was especially special since Chris and I crossed paths interning at some random company back in my hometown on the east coast many lifetimes ago.

A warmup and scope out of the snow conditions around the Mount Baker Ski Area. Chris is so speedy!

Can’t remember why I came up here since Camp Muir is a relatively uninteresting objective, but still good to check out the area.

A lot of sentimental value coming back here as the Wasatch were my first “real” mountains I saw up close, and where I learned to really ski, which is probably responsible for this whole phase of my life. I wanted to write an entry for each outing I did in Utah but frankly I didn’t have that many pictures that I felt were all that scenic, so combining all of the pictures into one post with a bit of thoughts at the end.

To add to the confusion, there is also a White Salmon Glacier on a prominent Washington mountain (Shuksan being the other). I thought this terrain feature looked sooo cool on CalTopo but was unfortunately a bit more disappointing than expected.

Feeling strong enough this season to try for a double lap on Mount Adams.

A solo repeat of the exact same outing from last year, except I actually got the pictures I wanted!

My third summit of hood and my second time skiing off the true summit. I think I’m done with this route for good haha.

A double volcano day hanging around Bend, OR.

Back on Shasta, but the funky weather continues.